How blockchain can build the world's largest supercomputer

Rage Comment : Currently, many fields and industries use a large number of data-intensive and computing-intensive applications and programs, and the demand for computer computing power has increased significantly. At the same time, various computer devices are idle most of the time. Therefore, these idle computing resources can be used to meet the needs of enterprises. Decentralized blockchain technology can solve this key problem in multiple dimensions, including shortening the distance between data centers and data sources and users. This will lay a solid foundation for the realization of supercomputers.

Translation: Annie_Xu

Most of the time, computers are idle on the desk, but our demand for computing resources is increasing rapidly. Large-scale IoT systems, machine language learning and deep learning algorithms are deployed in various industries and fields. Various sophisticated solutions require more powerful cloud servers and more bandwidth to meet the urgent needs of enterprises.

So how can we make more rational and efficient use of idle and wasted computing power? Blockchain technology, which has gained attention in many fields, may be able to eliminate this dilemma and build a computing resource lending platform.

Increasing computing power challenges

Gilles Fedak, co-founder of distributed cloud computing platform iEx.ec, said:

"Industries and the scientific community require more and more computing power to run large applications and programs and process large amounts of data."

Fedak cited areas such as product simulation, deep learning, and 3D rendering as areas where demand for expensive computing resources and high-performance computing (HPC) continues to increase.

Jerry Cuomo, Vice President of IBM Blockchain for Business, said:

"The biggest obstacle to supercomputers is time compression."

"Business processes must be completed at much faster speeds than before. Therefore, the demand for computing power is also growing exponentially."

David Sonstebo, founder of IOTA, an IoT distributed ledger, also stressed the importance of achieving real-time computing and overcoming the latency of existing cloud computing models. “In general, the biggest problem with computing is that the devices that generate the data are too far away from the data centers that analyze it.”

How distributed computing solves these problems

SETI@home computing resource sharing platforms have been around for years, but they still require a central broker to allocate and manage tasks, which makes things more complicated.

For example, centralized cloud computing in the field of the Internet of Things cannot meet the needs. Sonstebo said:

"The evolving Internet of Things has an absolute need for distributed computing." Edge cloud devices generate data, and data processing faces many challenges, including round-trip latency, network congestion, signal conflicts, and geographical distance. "Devices must be able to trade computing resources with each other in real time to distribute the computing load."

Centralized architecture sometimes directly rejects certain software product lines, such as distributed applications (DAPP). It is impossible to implement fog computing, distributed artificial intelligence, and parallel stream data processing. "This level of application is very challenging because they are both computing-intensive and data-intensive; they do not fit well with centralized infrastructure."

Another problem with the centralized model is that it encourages resource sharing.

Co-founder and CEO of distributed computing platform Golem said:

"Looking at the development of virtualization technology in the past 10 to 20 years, you can find that it has become easier to build any environment in a data center or a personal computer. But it is still very difficult to actually rent hardware. Comparing equipment from different suppliers is complicated, and finding the solution that best suits the task requires a lot of time and expertise."

Preston Byrne, Chief Technology Officer at Monax, said:

“The question about payment is how to ensure that the participants are actually performing the tasks, or how to ensure that the computing power providers understand the value of this exchange.” If you are working with a trusted institution, it is relatively simple. But if it is a node with uneven hardware and computing power, it is different.

How distributed ledgers can fill the gap

Distributed computer networks managed by blockchain and smart contracts can realize a sharing economy, allowing everyone with a computer to rent out idle computing power and earn extra income.

The peer-to-peer nature of blockchain and distributed ledgers also helps to place devices providing computing power closer to the source of data, avoiding round-trip delays with cloud devices.

Byrne said that while blockchain itself is not a computing platform, it is possible to build "a marketplace application that connects buyers and sellers of computing time and allows them to pay with cryptocurrency without having to have a middleman like AWS."

IOTA’s Sonstebo further elaborated on his view that distributed ledgers “rent out computing power, which is a light in the fog, such as the edge of the network.” IOTA has developed a distributed ledger based on Tangle. This scalable design eliminates blocks and uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) instead, which can reduce transaction time and costs. It is the core of the distributed computing power on-demand transaction model in the M2M environment.

Golem, which recently raised $8.6 million in an ICO, has developed a peer-to-peer computing power sharing platform on the Ethereum blockchain, which it calls "Airbnb for computers." Golem allows application owners and individual users to rent out computing resources to other users, paying directly in cryptocurrency.

Golem growth hacker Eddy Azar said the platform could "reduce costs and increase speed in many areas, such as scientific research, machine language learning, graphics rendering, etc. It could also allow people with ordinary or better computer equipment to share resources and earn additional benefits."

After submitting a task to the Golem network, the requester is matched with a supplier, analyzing factors such as price, reputation, and machine performance recorded in the ledger. The resources are then sent to the supplier for processing and sent back after the task is completed. If the result is approved, the supplier can get paid. The user's reputation depends on their success rate in completing tasks and payments.

Developers can use Golem's open source code and API to develop, and use its network to register in the Golem application library. Azar compares it to an app store, where developers can rent it out publicly and charge a fee as long as they are willing.

iEx.ec is another distributed computing platform that uses the Ethereum blockchain to build a "market network for applications, data, and computing power, including high-performance computing. This means that anyone can provide computing power through blockchain smart contracts." Julien Béranger from the company's Community Outreach Office said that the platform uses Desktop Grid or Volunteer Computing to collect idle computing power and execute large-scale parallel applications at a much lower cost than traditional supercomputers. SETI@Home, Folding@home, distributed.net and other distributed computing platforms all use this model.

The iEx.ec team hopes that this combination can provide cheap, scalable, on-demand CPU, GPU, database, storage and other resources.

Blockchain brings big changes, iEx.ec’s Fedak believes:

"Because blockchain supports decentralized infrastructure, it can shorten the distance between data and data providers and consumers. However, in the centralized cloud computing model, data centers are usually located in remote areas."

The demand for computing power will continue to increase in the future. It is not yet known whether cloud servers can be upgraded to meet the demand for computing resources, costs and speed. At the same time, blockchain brings us possibilities and successes that traditional technologies have not achieved.