From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000

May 26, 2003 | Source: New York Times

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an army of Sony PlayStation 2’s for about $50,000.

The center’s researchers believe the system may be capable of .5 teraflops. It uses the PlayStation’s graphics co-processor, the Emotion Engine, which is capable of producing up to 6.5 gigaflops, rather than its microprocessor.