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Massively distributed supercomputing is suitable for those demanding computing problems that are amenable to massive parallelization — splitting a large problem into many smaller tasks that can be farmed out to a distributed network. But there are ways to “parallelize” many computing tasks that, at a first glance, don’t seem suitable for massively parallel computing.
One of the first successful examples of massively distributed supercomputing was SETI@home, a crowdsourced citizen science project started in 1999 to find candidate signals from alien intelligences. The SETI@home system sends millions of chunks of data (“work units”) to the participants, to be analyzed by their home computers. The SETI@home software processes the data on the participants’ computers in the idle times used by screensavers, and sends the analysis results back. Initially powered by custom software, SETI@home was later ported to the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) platform, which powers other similar projects including the vLHC@home citizen science project for particle physics, managed by CERN.
Volunteer citizen scientists contribute their own computing resources to BOINC projects for karma points and the satisfaction of contributing to important causes. But it seems likely that the new crowdsourced supercomputing paradigm can achieve critical mass only once viable ways to financially reward the participants are introduced.
Enter blockchain technology. It’s worth noting that Bitcoin provided a spectacular demonstration that the general masses will flock to the weirdest ideas proposed by scientists and social activists if they can make money in the process.
TechCrunch ran a story on the potential of distributed ledger technology to usher in a new era of massively distributed computing with next-generation platforms that enable participants to lend and borrow computing resources — and make money in the process.
The story mentions several innovative blockchain companies, including Golem, a Polish company that is developing an “Airbnb for computers” able to “reduce costs and increase speed in domains such as scientific research, machine learning and graphics rendering, while making it possible for anyone with an average or better computer to share resources and make a side income,” with an Ethereum-based transaction system to clear payments between buyers, providers and software developers. Golem’s plans have found favor among investors, resulting in the third-largest platform ICO (Initial Coin Offering) ever, which raised $8.6 million in minutes.
The SETI@Home comeback