Fighting COVID-19

We may be a smaller company yet, daily, we still have upwards of 13 computers running so that we can do everything that we need to do.  

Our most powerful computer is our graphics & rendering computer.  If you have recently visited our shop, you may have seen it up front in all its flashy rainbow-lit glory.

While this computer is usually busy with the creation of graphics, technical drawings and video, like our other 12 computers, there are times when they are only running simple apps or sitting idle. This leaves huge amounts of CPU and GPU power otherwise unoccupied and unexploited. 

We at Moss LED, have decided to dedicate our unused computing power to help fight COVID-19 24/7. Whether the computers are physically in our shop or with our staff currently working from home, we are allocating their excess power in order to give power where it is needed: to researchers working on understanding and fighting COVID-19 during this Global Pandemic. 

The research needed in order to find possible cures/vaccines requires computers to run various simulations and process massive sets of calculations.  Running one of these simulations would take over 500 years for the most powerful MacBookPro to calculate on its own.  Ain’t nobody got time for that!  

Supercomputers exist for when this vast amount of computer power is needed.  The problem is that supercomputers cost between $100-250 million to build - and another $6-7 million a year to pay for the hydro to keep them running. That’s 22 cents per second just to operate one supercomputer. 

Even with the number of supercomputers that exist around the world, access for researchers is limited.  Every six months the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory receives approximately 20 to 25 proposals to borrow the computing power of their supercomputer.  They are only able to accept about 10 proposals and, even then, there are only 1-4 projects running at a time on this gigantic, expensive machine.

This deficit could certainly impact the critical life-saving research needed right now.

The Folding@home project (FAH or F@h) was founded in 2000 by the Pande Lab at Stanford University as an attempt to make use of under-utilized computer processing power around the world.

A supercomputer is basically a few hundred powerful computers all linked and working together toward the same goal.  Researchers at the Pande Lab realized there were literally millions of computers in offices and homes running far below capacity, so they offered a platform to make use of that extra computing power. 

The FAH Project works when people like us (and people like you!) sign up to join the project to volunteer our unused computer processing power to help find a vaccine or cure for COVID-19 (without it even affecting your daily life).

Linking all our computers together to millions of other project participants, enables us to create virtual supercomputers to help speed research and discoveries in areas such as Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s Disease, in addition to the COVID-19 virus.

If you would like to learn more and join the project yourself please go to https://foldingathome.org/.  In the meantime, you can be assured that our excess computing power (including our flashy rainbow-lit beast on the front desk) is helping in the fight against COVID-19.

* As of March 24, Folding at Home is currently experiencing a 20x increase in demand.  The FAH team are working on building their server capacity to meet this demand.  In the meantime we highly recommend joining the World Community Grid (WCG).  Although WCG currently does not have any projects focused on fighting COVID-19, they have 6 active research projects that need your help.  

If you would like to join us, our Folding@Home Team ID is 244747 and our name is mossledinc.

If you would like to join our team on World Community Grid, click here.