...and be part of a major global project that has incredible potential to help mankind for generations to come.
FAST FACTS AT A GLANCE:
* What is TheMatrix.mx?
"TheMatrix" is a revolutionary project to create the world's largest supercomputer cluster, using 5,000 Sony PS3 consoles, allowing FREE access to colleges and universities worldwide to conduct medical research to understand, and learn to CURE cancer and other diseases, as well as scientific research to understand weather patterns, thermo dynamics, earthquake & tsunami prediction, astro-physics, and other physics research that can ONLY be done with massive supercomputing power.
* Why do we need this?
Advanced scientific, astronomical, and medical research relies heavily on modeling, simulation, etc., which requires the power only supercomputers can deliver. Unfortunately they are EXPENSIVE, costing hundres of millions of dollars. Many colleges and universities can't afford them.
* The Solution:
Use multiple, low cost machines, networked together, to form a "cluster supercomputer" at a fraction of the cost.
* Who is behind TheMatrix.mx:
The Non Profit Organization, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt charity.
A look at the project information in detail:
For Example, PROTEIN FOLDING:
...is linked to disease, such as Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers.
What IS Protein Folding?
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery. Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.
Research requires enormous amounts of computing power far greater than any PC can provide, which is why supercomputers like the CRAY, are extremely expensive, approaching hundreds of millions of dollars, therefore only governments and large, established, well funded universities can afford them... far beyond the reach of most colleges and many universities to own, and even too expensive to lease time to use them.
Supercomputers are used to do highly complex mathematic modeling, for example, protein (mis)folding is linked to diseases, Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, and many cancers. Supercomputers are used to research and create virtual models, etc. to better understand how they work, and what causes things to go wrong, so cures can eventually be realized.
The Inspiration:
"The Matrix" is a massive ongoing project from The Non Profit Organization. Originally inspired by Virginia Tech University, where they took 1,100 Apple Mac G5 desktop computers, and linked them together to create the 3rd fastest supercomputer in the world (at the time). View the video of this here.
ast year, the Unites States Air Force / Department Of Defense purchased 300 Sony PS3 (Playstation 3) gaming consoles, NOT TO PLAY GAMES ON, but to make a mini supercomputer cluster, and again recently this year, they purchased an additional 2,200 which will be linked into the supercomputer cluster.
The Solution:
Mr. Ari Burton, President / C.E.O. of Corporate Headquarters, Inc., and President of The Non Profit Organization charity was inspired, and started thinking outside the box.
"What would happen if we really pushed the technology, applied on a very large scale, and linked 5,000+ PS3 consoles. What would happen if we clustered 5,000 PS3 consoles at a location in the United States, another 5,000 consoles in the U.K. (Great Britain), another 5,000 consoles in Israel, Japan, etc... ...and linked them ALL together.
By approaching things on a commercial scale, applying it through a charity, the result is what researchers and academics worldwide could only fantasize about in their dreams.
Thus the concept for "TheMatrix" was born.
Why Sony PS3 Game consoles?
"The Sony PlayStation 3 has a number of unique features that make it particularly suited for scientific computation. First, the PS3 is an open platform, which essentially means that one can run a different system software on it, for example PowerPC Linux. Next, it has a revolutionary processor called the Cell processor which was developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. This processor has a main CPU (called the PPE) and several (six (6) for the PS3) special compute engines (called SPEs) available for raw computation. Moreover, each SPE performs vector operations, which implies that they can compute on multiple data, in a single step (SIMD). Finally, its incredibly low cost make it very attractive as a scientific computing node i.e. part of a compute cluster. In fact, its highly plausible that the raw computing power-per-dollar that the PS3 offers, is significantly higher than anything else on the market today." *
By linking multiple PS3 units together to perform as one, it reaches the power of a supercomputer at a FRACTION of the cost.
*The quoted text is from Dr. Gaurav Khanna's PS3 Gravity Grid.
