Folding@home coronavirus project is 15 times faster than any supercomputer

Used GPU (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

Folding@home now has approximately 2.4 exaFLOPS of processing power.
That combined total is more than the top 500 supercomputers in the world put together.
Folding@home uses the donated processing power to battle coronavirus (COVID-19) and other diseases.

Folding@home now has a combined processing power of approximately 2.4 exaFLOPS. That power is more than the top 500 supercomputers in the world put together and 15 times faster than the fastest supercomputer on Earth, the IBM Summit. Rather than building a single supercomputer, Folding@home relies on donated processing power from people's computers around the world. That power is then utilized to combat diseases such as coronavirus (COVID-19) and Alzheimer's. Folding@home shared the milestone on Twitter earlier this week.

With our collective power, we are now at ~2.4 exaFLOPS (faster than the top 500 supercomputers combined)! We complement supercomputers like IBM Summit, which runs short calculations using 1000s of GPUs at once, by spreading longer calculations around the world in smaller chunks! pic.twitter.com/fdUaXOcdFJWith our collective power, we are now at ~2.4 exaFLOPS (faster than the top 500 supercomputers combined)! We complement supercomputers like IBM Summit, which runs short calculations using 1000s of GPUs at once, by spreading longer calculations around the world in smaller chunks! pic.twitter.com/fdUaXOcdFJ— Folding@home (@foldingathome) April 13, 2020 April 13, 2020

Battling a disease such as coronavirus requires various different methods of study. The massive combined processing power of Folding@home is used to model proteins related to the disease. Proteins move and form an incredibly high number of shapes, and all of them need to be studied. When Folding@home joined the fight against coronavirus, it explained how processing power can be used:

Proteins are not stagnant—they wiggle and fold and unfold to take on numerous shapes. We need to study not only one shape of the viral spike protein but all the ways the protein wiggles and folds into alternative shapes in order to best understand how it interacts with the ACE2 receptor, so that an antibody can be designed.

Since Folding@home began working on coronavirus, its power has skyrocketed. On March 23, 2020, Folding@home's combined processing power was 470 petaFLOPS, which was more than the world's top seven supercomputers. Now, at 2.4 exaFLOPS, it's more than the top 500 supercomputers. One exaFLOP is the equivalent of 1,000 petaFLOPS, meaning the combined processing power jumped by almost 2,000 petaFLOPS in just over a few weeks.

Sean Endicott is a news writer and apps editor for Windows Central with 11+ years of experience. A Nottingham Trent journalism graduate, Sean has covered the industry’s arc from the Lumia era to the launch of Windows 11 and generative AI. Having started at Thrifter, he uses his expertise in price tracking to help readers find genuine hardware value.

Beyond tech news, Sean is a UK sports media pioneer. In 2017, he became one of the first to stream via smartphone and is an expert in AP Capture systems. A tech-forward coach, he was named 2024 BAFA Youth Coach of the Year. He is focused on using technology—from AI to Clipchamp—to gain a practical edge.