Remember how the US Air Force bought a ton of PlayStation 3 consoles then strung them together? Ever wonder just why the military would do a thing like that? Well, itās not for playing Killzone on.
https://lastchance.cc/playstation-3-cluster-or-skynet-5422179%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
In all, 1760 consoles have been joined with ā168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating serversā to form what the Air Force is calling āthe fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Departmentā. Itās also, the military claims, the 33rd largest computer of any kind in the world.
This ārat kingā of PlayStation 3s will be used for things like research into AI, fast processing of satellite pictures and the enhancement of radar.
Interestingly, despite only recently going online with this monstrosity, the Air Force Research Labās Mark Barnell recognises that the Cell technology powering the PS3 is no longer the bees knees, and says āweāre looking forward to working with the next generation of architectureā.
Which is formal talk for āweāre looking forward to going out and buying 2000 PlayStation 4s in a few years timeā.
Defense Department discusses new Sony PlayStation supercomputer [Cleveland.com, via Gamasutra]
