SUNY New Paltz World Community Grid team

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What is the World Community Grid?

The World Community Grid is an organization that has set up a form of computer network called a grid. This grid network aggregates the computing power of Internet-connected PCs. The computer time is used to solve scientific problems which are deemed to be in the public interest. There are two current projects. Protein folding is studied in order to formulate medicines that work at the molecular level. The latest project is FightAIDS@home which is searching for molecules that inhibit the HIV protease. By joining the World Community Grid, you can participate in these efforts by using the idle computing power of your PC.

There is a computer program called the World Community Grid agent which runs on PCs to perform calculations. The agent runs in the background and should not be noticeable except for an icon in the System Tray. There is a small increase in electrical power used by a computer running the agent. There is no cost to participate, except for the cost of the small extra amount of electrical power.

The computer calculations are grouped into Tasks, which are downloaded by the agent from the World Community Grid servers. Each task takes some number of hours to complete. The results of the calculations, when completed, are sent back to the servers. Points are then awarded to your member account, based on the size of the task. Once one task is completed, the next is downloaded and processed automatically.

When you join the SUNY New Paltz World Community Grid team, your statistics are added to those of other members of the campus community. We will be recording the team's statistical milestones on the news page of this site.

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