The company disclosed that it is diverting its high-efficient GPU based computing nodes for performing calculations related to COVID-19.
The diversion of Bitfury’s resources is a fine demonstration of distributed computing project, Folding@Home (F@H), initiated by an association of scientific study labs throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
Amid the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, F@H has unveiled a venture to mimic the molecular structure of the virus in an attempt to provide valuable inputs to the creation of efficacious treatment.
The venture, which necessitates gargantuan computational resources, has been looking for grants in the form of computational power from organizations, enterprises and individuals.
Bitfury, on its part, has so far utilized its nodes to process more than 1,300 calculations for the F@H efforts.
Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov has issued a statement saying that he was “confident that this project from Folding at Home, alongside the work of many researchers and doctors, will significantly advance our understanding and treatment of this disease.”
Bitfury, notably, is one among the several crypto sector players to play a part in the F@H endeavor.
Other blockchain venture backing the F@H project is Golem. Also, blockchain platform provider Tezos (XTZ) has set aside several hundred XTZ tokens to be given to the biggest F@H donor by the end of March.
Just a recommendation – the current Brass Golem is not able to do this, but we would like to spread the word.
Just like people did with SETI@Home, you can contribute to medical research that is working on #COVID19 vaccines. @rosettaathome @foldingathome https://t.co/1r3MS0b3K1— golem – NOT DOING AIRDROPS. (@golemproject) March 13, 2020
Tezos, as of March 12, had 20 groups offering their resources for the venture. The US based Ether (ETH) miner Coreweave has also shifted its computing resources involving 6,000 GPUs.
And we got 20 teams participating already to @foldingathome pic.twitter.com/2iSrCZ23g2
— Tulpenhaendler (@tulpenhaendler) March 12, 2020
PC Gamers, let’s put those GPUs to work.
Join us and our friends at @OfficialPCMR in supporting folding@home and donating unused GPU computing power to fight against COVID-19!
Learn more → https://t.co/EQE4u7xTZT pic.twitter.com/uO0ZCq8PEv
— NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) March 13, 2020
Similarly, semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia is also contributing its computing power. In mid-March, Nvidia also requested individual gamers to give access to their unutilized GPU computing power for the research project.