News Blog

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. on Wed. said that the Playstation 3 and Stanford University’s Folding@home program has been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network in the world.

The record was set on Sept. 16 when Folding@home surpassed 1 petaflop by the distributed computing network. On Sept. 23, the PS3 hardware alone contributed to 1 petaflop of floating point operations per second.

“To have PS3 play such a large role in allowing Folding@home to be honored by Guinness World Records is truly incredible,” said Masayuki Chatani, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Technology Platform, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

“This record is clear evidence of the power of PS3 and the contributions that it is making to the Folding@home network, and more importantly, scientific research.”

More than 670,000 unique users have registered ot the Folding@home network. The program simulates protein folding to study its link to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and certain forms of cancer.

“To have Folding@home recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful,” said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead.

“Without them we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases. But it is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds.”

Sony this week said that losses caused by the PS3 game console may near $1 billion, an increase from a prior estimate of $876 million.

The company last week recorded a 96.7 billion yen loss in the game division that was offset by a quarterly profit from strong electronics sales.