IBM World Community Grid
1World Community Grid (WCG) is an effort to create the world's largest volunteer computing platform to tackle scientific research that benefits humanity.[3] Launched on November 16, 2004, with proprietary Grid MP client from United Devices and adding support for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) in 2005, World Community Grid eventually discontinued the Grid MP client and consolidated on the BOINC platform in 2008.[4] In September 2021, it was announced that IBM transferred ownership to the Krembil Research Institute of University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario.[5]
World Community Grid utilizes unused processing power of consumer devices (PCs, Laptops, Android Smartphones, etc.) to analyse data created by the research groups that participate in the grid. WCG projects have analysed data related to the human genome, the human microbiome, HIV, dengue, muscular dystrophy, cancer, influenza, Ebola, Zika virus, virtual screening, rice crop yields, clean energy, water purification and COVID-19, among other research areas.[6]
There are currently five active projects and 26 completed projects.[7] Several of these projects have published peer-reviewed papers based on the analysis of the data generated by WCG. These include an OpenZika project paper on the discovery of a compound (FAM 3) that inhibits the NS3 Helicase protein of the Zika virus, thus reducing viral replication by up to 86%;[8][9] a FightAIDS@home paper on the discovery of new vulnerabilities on the HIV-1 Capsid protein which may allow for a new drug target;[10][11] a FightAIDS@home paper on new computational drug discovery techniques for more refined and accurate results.[12][13]
History
In 2003, IBM and other research participants sponsored the Smallpox Research Grid Project to accelerate the discovery of a cure for smallpox.[14] The smallpox study used a massive distributed computing grid to analyse compounds' effectiveness against smallpox.[15] The project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates for developing into smallpox treatments. In the first 72 hours, 100,000 results were returned. By the end of the project, 44 strong treatment candidates had been identified.[16] Based on the success of the Smallpox study, IBM announced the creation of World Community Grid on November 16, 2004, with the goal of creating a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be processed.[1][15]
World Community Grid initially only supported Windows, using the proprietary Grid MP software from United Devices which powered the grid.org distributed computing projects. Demand for Linux support led to the addition in November 2005 of open source Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) software which powers projects such as SETI@home and Climateprediction.[17] Mac OS and Linux support was added since the introduction of BOINC.[18] In 2007, the World Community Grid migrated from Grid MP to BOINC for all of its supported platforms.[19]
In September 2021, IBM announced that it had transferred ownership of the World Community Grid to the Krembil Research Institute. The entire transition process will take place over the next few months.[5]
Scale of the project
As of January 8, 2023, World Community Grid had over 23,000 active user accounts, with over 57,000 active devices.[2] Over the course of the project, more than 2,000,000 cumulative years of computing time have been donated, and over 6 billion work units have been completed.[20]