Volunteer computing
Volunteer computing uses computers belonging to ordinary people, like you, to create a computing grid that can rival the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
Are you interested in making the world a better place, but never have the time? Here's something you can do while you sleep!
If you join a volunteer computing project, you agree to donate the idle cycles of your computer to specific research projects.
What does that mean?
While you're not using your computer, someone else is using it for their research. While you're sleeping, or on the phone, or simply not using your computer's entire power, volunteer computing software uses your leftover computer power to solve calculations, perform simulations and otherwise contribute to some amazing projects.
Whether you're into health, maths, climate change or finding life on other planets, volunteer computing has something for you.
Just remember, like anything on the Web, you need to be careful with what you download.
Make sure you only download volunteer computing software from legitimate sources.
| Climateprediction.net: Climate research Compute Against Cancer: Cancer research FightAIDS@Home: HIV/AIDS research Folding@Home: Disease research GridRepublic: Manyexciting and different research projects |
LHC@home: High energy physics GIMPS: Mathematics SETI@home: Extraterrestrial intelligence World Community Grid: Many different projects all with humanitarian aims |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | Climateprediction.net | Climate research |
| SYNOPSIS | Climateprediction.net uses idle processor cycles contributed by volunteers to investigate state-of-the-art climate models, studying the response of climate to slight tweaks in the models. Join Climateprediction.net |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | Compute Against Cancer | Cancer research |
| SYNOPSIS | Compute Against Cancer uses idle processor cycles contributed by volunteers to help researchers study the structure and behaviour of cancer cells and create better ways to screen new cancer drugs. Join Compute Against Cancer |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | FightAIDS@Home | HIV and AIDS research |
| SYNOPSIS | FightAIDS@Home uses idle processor cycles contributed by volunteers to model the evolution of HIV drug resistance and to evaluate prospective candidates for HIV drug discovery. The project recently joined World Community grid, which now has more than one million volunteers signed up. Run by the Olson Lab at the Scripps Research Institute in the U.S. Join FightAIDS@home |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | Folding@Home | Disease research |
| SYNOPSIS | Folding@Home uses idle processor cycles contributed by volunteers to study protein folding, misfolding, aggregation and related diseases. Run by Standord University with partners from around the globe. Join Folding@Home |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | GridRepublic | Single login makes volunteer computing easy |
| SYNOPSIS | GridRepublic makes volunteer computing simple, giving you a single login to manage all the BOINC-powered volunteer computing projects you wish to contribute to, including many of the projects on this page. GridRepublic makes contributing to a volunteer grid as easy as checking your email. You can even manage multiple computers from this site. Join GridRepublic |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | LHC@home | High energy physics |
| SYNOPSIS | Since 2004, LHC@home has been supporting accelerator physicists simulating the proton beam stability of the future Large Hadron Collider. Join LHC@home |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search | Mathematics |
| SYNOPSIS | The GIMPS project seeks to discover new world-record-size Mersenne primes (Prime numbers of the form 2n-1 ) Join GIMPS |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | SETI@home | Extraterrestrial intelligence |
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SETI@home uses volunteer computers to search for intelligent life outside Earth. Run from the University of California-Berkeley in the US. |
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| PROJECT DETAILS | World Community Grid | Supports multiple volunteer computing projects. |
| SYNOPSIS | World Community Grid tackles projects that benefit humanity. All results are made public for the global research community. Sponsored by IBM. Join World Community Grid |
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