This is a list of distributed computing

Distributed computing

Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...

 projects based on BOINC

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing is an open source middleware system for volunteer and grid computing. It was originally developed to support the SETI@home project before it became useful as a platform for other distributed applications in areas as diverse as mathematics,...

 middleware

Middleware

Middleware is computer software that connects software components or people and their applications. The software consists of a set of services that allows multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact...

 project developed at University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. In many of these projects, users volunteer CPU time from their home computer. When there is idle time

Idle (CPU)

A computer processor is described as idle when it is not being used by any program.Programs which make use of CPU Idle Time mean that they run at a low priority so as not to impact programs that run at normal priority...

 available to work on the distributed computing project, client software can detect and utilize the "spare CPU cycles." In some projects, a computer's graphics processor (GPU) may be employed to work on the project.

Current Projects

• Biology and medicine
  • Folding@Home
    Folding@home
    Folding@home is a distributed computing project designed to use spare processing power on personal computers to perform simulations of disease-relevant protein folding and other molecular dynamics, and to improve on the methods of doing so...
    
     - seeks to cure Cancer, ALS, Alzheimer's and many other diseases by observing proteins folding.
  • Docking@Home
    Docking@Home
    Docking@Home is a distributed computing project hosted by the University of Delaware and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing software platform. It models protein-ligand docking using the CHARMM program. The ultimate aim is the development of new pharmaceutical...
    
     — models protein-ligand
    Ligand (biochemistry)
    In biochemistry and pharmacology, a ligand is a substance that forms a complex with a biomolecule to serve a biological purpose. In a narrower sense, it is a signal triggering molecule, binding to a site on a target protein.The binding occurs by intermolecular forces, such as ionic bonds, hydrogen...
    
     docking.
  • GPUGRID.net
    GPUGRID.net
    GPUGRID is a distributed computing project hosted by Pompeu Fabra University and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing software platform...
    
     — conducts full-atom molecular biology
    Molecular biology
    Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
    
     simulations, designed for CUDA
    CUDA
    CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...
    
    -capable graphics processing unit
    Graphics processing unit
    A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
    
    s.
  • Malaria Control — performs stochastic
    Stochastic
    Stochastic refers to systems whose behaviour is intrinsically non-deterministic. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic, in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. However, according to M. Kac and E...
    
     modelling of the clinical epidemiology
    Epidemiology
    Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
    
     and natural history of malaria
    Malaria
    Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
    
    .
  • POEM@Home
    POEM@Home
    POEM@Home is a distributed computing project hosted by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing software platform...
    
     — models protein folding using Anfinsen's dogma
    Anfinsen's dogma
    Anfinsen's dogma is a postulate in molecular biology championed by the Nobel Prize Laureate Christian B. Anfinsen...
    
    .
  • Rosetta@home
    Rosetta@home
    Rosetta@home is a distributed computing project for protein structure prediction on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform, run by the Baker laboratory at the University of Washington...
    
     — tests the assembly of specific proteins, using appropriate fragments of better-known proteins.
  • SIMAP
    SIMAP
    Similarity Matrix of Proteins, or SIMAP, is a database of protein similarities created using distributed computing, which is freely accessible for scientific purposes...
    
     — compiles a database of protein similarities.

• Earth sciences
  • Climateprediction.net
    Climateprediction.net
    Climateprediction.net, or CPDN, is a distributed computing project to investigate and reduce uncertainties in climate modelling. It aims to do this by running hundreds of thousands of different models using the donated idle time of ordinary personal computers, thereby leading to a better...
    
     — attempts to reduce the uncertainty ranges of climate model
    Climate model
    Climate models use quantitative methods to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and ice. They are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the climate system to projections of future climate...
    
    s.
  • Quake-Catcher Network
    Quake-Catcher Network
    The Quake-Catcher Network is a joint collaborative initiative run by Stanford University and UC Riverside that aims to use computer based accelerometers to detect earthquakes...
    
     — uses accelerometer
    Accelerometer
    An accelerometer is a device that measures proper acceleration, also called the four-acceleration. This is not necessarily the same as the coordinate acceleration , but is rather the type of acceleration associated with the phenomenon of weight experienced by a test mass that resides in the frame...
    
    s in, or attached to, internet-connected computers to detect earthquake
    Earthquake
    An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
    
    s.

• Physics and astronomy
  • AQUA@home
    AQUA@home
    AQUA@Home was a distributed computing project operated by D-Wave Systems and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing software platform, it closed down in August 2011. Its goal was to predict the performance of superconducting adiabatic quantum computers on a variety of...
    
     — uses Quantum Monte Carlo
    Quantum Monte Carlo
    Quantum Monte Carlo is a large class of computer algorithms that simulate quantum systems with the idea of solving the quantum many-body problem. They use, in one way or another, the Monte Carlo method to handle the many-dimensional integrals that arise...
    
     to predict the performance of superconducting adiabatic
    Adiabatic theorem
    The adiabatic theorem is an important concept in quantum mechanics. Its original form, due to Max Born and Vladimir Fock , can be stated as follows:...
    
     quantum computer
    Quantum computer
    A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from traditional computers based on transistors...
    
    s.
  • Einstein@Home
    Einstein@Home
    Einstein@Home is a volunteer distributed computing project hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics . The project is directed by Bruce Allen...
    
     — uses data from LIGO
    LIGO
    LIGO, which stands for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a large-scale physics experiment aiming to directly detect gravitational waves. Cofounded in 1992 by Kip Thorne and Ronald Drever of Caltech and Rainer Weiss of MIT, LIGO is a joint project between scientists at MIT,...
    
     and GEO 600
    GEO 600
    GEO 600 is a gravitational wave detector located near Sarstedt, Germany. This instrument, and its sister interferometric detectors, when operational, are some of the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors ever designed...
    
     to search for gravitational wave
    Gravitational wave
    In physics, gravitational waves are theoretical ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted to exist by Albert Einstein in 1916 on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves theoretically transport energy as...
    
    s.
  • MilkyWay@Home
    MilkyWay@Home
    MilkyWay@home is a volunteer distributed computing project in astrophysics running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform...
    
     — uses data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project was named after the Alfred P...
    
     to deduce the structure of the Milky Way
    Milky Way
    The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
    
     galaxy.
  • QMC@Home
    QMC@Home
    QMC@Home is a distributed computing project for the BOINC client aimed at further developing and testing Quantum Monte Carlo for use in quantum chemistry. It is hosted by the University of Münster with participation by the Cavendish Laboratory...
    
     — uses Quantum Monte Carlo
    Quantum Monte Carlo
    Quantum Monte Carlo is a large class of computer algorithms that simulate quantum systems with the idea of solving the quantum many-body problem. They use, in one way or another, the Monte Carlo method to handle the many-dimensional integrals that arise...
    
     to predict molecular geometry
    Molecular geometry
    Molecular geometry or molecular structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms that constitute a molecule. It determines several properties of a substance including its reactivity, polarity, phase of matter, color, magnetism, and biological activity.- Molecular geometry determination...
    
    .
  • SETI@home
    SETI@home
    SETI@home is an Internet-based public volunteer computing project employing the BOINC software platform, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence...
    
     — searches cosmic radio emission data for extraterrestrial intelligence.
  • theSkyNet — searches data collected from radio telescopes such as ASKAP.

• Mathematics
  • Collatz Conjecture — studies the Collatz conjecture
    Collatz conjecture
    The Collatz conjecture is a conjecture in mathematics named after Lothar Collatz, who first proposed it in 1937. The conjecture is also known as the 3n + 1 conjecture, the Ulam conjecture , Kakutani's problem , the Thwaites conjecture , Hasse's algorithm The Collatz conjecture is a...
    
    .
  • PrimeGrid
    PrimeGrid
    PrimeGrid is a distributed computing project for searching for prime numbers of world-record size. It makes use of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform...
    
     — searches for various types of prime number
    Prime number
    A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
    
    s
  • Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
    Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
    The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available computer software to search for Mersenne prime numbers. The project was founded by George Woltman, who also wrote the software Prime95 and MPrime for the project...
    
     - searches for Mersenne prime
    Mersenne prime
    In mathematics, a Mersenne number, named after Marin Mersenne , is a positive integer that is one less than a power of two: M_p=2^p-1.\,...
    
    s
  • MQL5 Cloud Network — MQL5 Cloud Network: accelerating selection of parameters for Expert Advisors in the MetaTrader 5 terminal using distributed computing network.

• Multi-application projects
  • Ibercivis
    Ibercivis
    Ibercivis is a distributed computing platform which allows internet users to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer cycles to run scientific simulations and other tasks...
    
     — studies nuclear fusion
    Nuclear fusion
    Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
    
    , materials science
    Materials science
    Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
    
    , neurodegenerative diseases caused by amyloid
    Amyloid
    Amyloids are insoluble fibrous protein aggregates sharing specific structural traits. Abnormal accumulation of amyloid in organs may lead to amyloidosis, and may play a role in various neurodegenerative diseases.-Definition:...
    
     accumulation, the effect of light
    Light
    Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
    
     on nanomaterials, fluid mechanics
    Fluid mechanics
    Fluid mechanics is the study of fluids and the forces on them. Fluid mechanics can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; fluid kinematics, the study of fluids in motion; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion...
    
    , macromolecular docking, and the function of proteins in memory
    Memory
    In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
    
     and learning
    Learning
    Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
    
    .
  • World Community Grid
    World Community Grid
    World Community Grid is an effort to create the world's largest public computing grid to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity...
    
     — studies a variety of problems in biology, medicine and the environment.
    • Clean Energy Project
      Clean Energy Project
      The Clean Energy Project is a distributed computing project which runs on the BOINC platform. It is an effort of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.-Purpose of the Project:...
      
       — tries to find the best organic compound
      Organic compound
      An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...
      
      s for solar cells and energy storage
      Energy storage
      Energy storage is accomplished by devices or physical media that store some form of energy to perform some useful operation at a later time. A device that stores energy is sometimes called an accumulator....
      
       devices.On phase 2.
    • Computing for Clean Water — uses the techniques of molecular dynamics
      Molecular dynamics
      Molecular dynamics is a computer simulation of physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a period of time, giving a view of the motion of the atoms...
      
       to determine the fluid dynamics
      Fluid dynamics
      In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
      
       of water filters that are composed of nanotube
      Nanotube
      A nanotube is a nanometer-scale tube-like structure. It may refer to:* Carbon nanotube* Inorganic nanotube* DNA nanotube* Membrane nanotube - a tubular membrane connection between cells...
      
      s.
    • FightAIDS@Home
      FightAIDS@Home
      FightAIDS@Home is a distributed computing project for internet-connected home computers, operated by the Olson Laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute...
      
       — identifies candidate drugs that have the right shape and chemical characteristics to block HIV
      HIV
      Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
      
       protease
      Protease
      A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain forming the protein....
      
      .
    • Help Conquer Cancer
      Help Conquer Cancer
      Help Conquer Cancer is a distributed computing project that runs on the BOINC platform. It is a joint project of the Ontario Cancer Institute and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute-Project Purpose:...
      
       — improves the results of protein X-ray crystallography
      X-ray crystallography
      X-ray crystallography is a method of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal, in which a beam of X-rays strikes a crystal and causes the beam of light to spread into many specific directions. From the angles and intensities of these diffracted beams, a crystallographer can produce a...
      
       to increase understanding of cancer
      Cancer
      Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
      
       and its treatment.
    • Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
      Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
      Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy is a distributed computing project that runs on the BOINC platform. It is a joint effort of the French muscular dystrophy charity, L'Association française contre les myopathies; and L'Institut de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire .-Project purpose:Help Cure Muscular...
      
       — investigates protein-protein interaction
      Protein-protein interaction
      Protein–protein interactions occur when two or more proteins bind together, often to carry out their biological function. Many of the most important molecular processes in the cell such as DNA replication are carried out by large molecular machines that are built from a large number of protein...
      
      s for more than 2,200 proteins which structures are known, focusing on those that act in neuromuscular disease
      Neuromuscular disease
      Neuromuscular disease is a very broad term that encompasses many diseases and ailments that either directly, via intrinsic muscle pathology, or indirectly, via nerve pathology, impair the functioning of the muscles....
      
      s. Currently on Phase 2.
    • Help Fight Childhood Cancer
      Help Fight Childhood Cancer
      Help Fight Childhood Cancer is a distributed computing project that runs on the BOINC platform. It is a joint effort of Chiba University and the Chiba Cancer Center-Project Purpose:...
      
       — finds drugs that can disable three proteins associated with neuroblastoma
      Neuroblastoma
      Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid cancer in childhood and the most common cancer in infancy, with an annual incidence of about 650 cases per year in the US , and 100 cases per year in the UK . Close to 50 percent of neuroblastoma cases occur in children younger than two years old...
      
      .Scientists haven't given any details but appear to very optimistic on the current results.More targets will be tested.
    • Human Proteome Folding Project
      Human Proteome Folding Project
      The Human Proteome Folding Project is a collaborative effort between New York University , the Institute for Systems Biology and the University of Washington , using the Rosetta software developed by the Rosetta Commons....
      
       — studies proteome
      Proteome
      The proteome is the entire set of proteins expressed by a genome, cell, tissue or organism. More specifically, it is the set of expressed proteins in a given type of cells or an organism at a given time under defined conditions. The term is a portmanteau of proteins and genome.The term has been...
      
       folding
      Protein folding
      Protein folding is the process by which a protein structure assumes its functional shape or conformation. It is the physical process by which a polypeptide folds into its characteristic and functional three-dimensional structure from random coil....
      
       in conjunction with Rosetta@home
      Rosetta@home
      Rosetta@home is a distributed computing project for protein structure prediction on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform, run by the Baker laboratory at the University of Washington...
      
      .Currently on Phase 2.
    • Influenza Antiviral Drug Search
      Influenza Antiviral Drug Search
      The Influenza Antiviral Drug Search is a distributed computing project that runs on the BOINC platform. It is a project of the University of Texas Medical Branch.-Project purpose:...
      
       — finds drugs that can stop the spread of influenza
      Influenza
      Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
      
       strains that have become drug resistant
      Drug resistance
      Drug resistance is the reduction in effectiveness of a drug such as an antimicrobial or an antineoplastic in curing a disease or condition. When the drug is not intended to kill or inhibit a pathogen, then the term is equivalent to dosage failure or drug tolerance. More commonly, the term is used...
      
       as well as new strains.Phase 2 will start soon.
    • Nutritious Rice for the World
      Nutritious Rice for the World
      Nutritious Rice for the World is a World Community Grid research project in the field of agronomy led by the Samudrala Computational Biology Research Group at the University of Washington. It was launched on May 12, 2008. The objective of this project is to predict the structure of proteins of...
      
       — tries to predict the protein structure
      Protein structure prediction
      Protein structure prediction is the prediction of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence — that is, the prediction of its secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure from its primary structure. Structure prediction is fundamentally different from the inverse...
      
       of rice
      Rice
      Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
      
       to help rice breeders create more abundant, resilient and nutritious harvests. Completed

Projects in development

These projects are considered to be in the Alpha or Beta development stages.

• Art
  • BURP — developing a publicly distributed system to render
    Rendering (computer graphics)
    Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
    
     3D animations
    3D computer graphics
    3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
    
    . (Beta)

• Artificial Intelligence
  • distributedDataMining — tests the data mining
    Data mining
    Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
    
     abilities of various methods of data analysis
    Data analysis
    Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making...
    
     and machine learning
    Machine learning
    Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Evo@home — uses evolutionary algorithm
    Evolutionary algorithm
    In artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection...
    
    s to optimize the parameters of different kinds of machine learning
    Machine learning
    Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...
    
     algorithms. (Alpha)
  • FreeHAL@home — parses
    Parsing
    In computer science and linguistics, parsing, or, more formally, syntactic analysis, is the process of analyzing a text, made of a sequence of tokens , to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given formal grammar...
    
     and converts
    Type conversion
    In computer science, type conversion, typecasting, and coercion are different ways of, implicitly or explicitly, changing an entity of one data type into another. This is done to take advantage of certain features of type hierarchies or type representations...
    
     big open source semantic nets
    Knowledge engineering
    Knowledge engineering was defined in 1983 by Edward Feigenbaum, and Pamela McCorduck as follows:At present, it refers to the building, maintaining and development of knowledge-based systems...
    
     to use in FreeHAL
    FreeHAL
    - Name :First, the program was called JEliza referring to the chatbot ELIZA by Joseph Weizenbaum.The J stood for Java because JEliza has first been programmed in Java. In May 2008, the program has been renamed to FreeHAL because the programming language has changed...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • MindModeling@Home
    MindModeling@Home
    MindModeling@home is a non-profit research project that uses volunteer distributed computing for the advancement of cognitive science. The research focuses on utilizing computational cognitive process modeling to understand the human mind better...
    
     — builds cognitive model
    Cognitive model
    A cognitive model is an approximation to animal cognitive processes for the purposes of comprehension and prediction. Cognitive models can be developed within or without a cognitive architecture, though the two are not always easily distinguishable.In contrast to cognitive architectures, cognitive...
    
    s of the human mind. (Beta)

• Biology & Medicine
  • DrugDiscovery@Home — early drug discovery by in silico
    In silico
    In silico is an expression used to mean "performed on computer or via computer simulation." The phrase was coined in 1989 as an analogy to the Latin phrases in vivo and in vitro which are commonly used in biology and refer to experiments done in living organisms and outside of living organisms,...
    
     drug design of chemical compounds for medicines
    Medicinal chemistry
    Medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry are disciplines at the intersection of chemistry, especially synthetic organic chemistry, and pharmacology and various other biological specialties, where it is involved with design, chemical synthesis and development for market of pharmaceutical...
    
     in the fields of cancer
    Cancer
    Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
    
     and neurodegenerative diseases. (Alpha)
  • The Lattice Project
    The Lattice Project
    The Lattice Project combines computing resources, Grid middleware, specialized scientific application software and web services into a comprehensive Grid computing system for scientific analysis....
    
     — studies a variety of problems in biology. (Beta)
  • RALPH@home — Rosetta@home
    Rosetta@home
    Rosetta@home is a distributed computing project for protein structure prediction on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform, run by the Baker laboratory at the University of Washington...
    
     official alpha test project.
  • RNA World — uses bioinformatics
    Bioinformatics
    Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
    
     software to study RNA structure
    RNA structure
    Biomolecular structure is the structure of biomolecules, mainly proteins and the nucleic acids DNA and RNA. The structure of these molecules is frequently decomposed into primary structure, secondary structure, tertiary structure, and quaternary structure. The scaffold for this structure is...
    
    . (Beta)
  • Superlink@Technion — uses genetic linkage
    Genetic linkage
    Genetic linkage is the tendency of certain loci or alleles to be inherited together. Genetic loci that are physically close to one another on the same chromosome tend to stay together during meiosis, and are thus genetically linked.-Background:...
    
     analysis to identify genes responsible for genetic disorder
    Genetic disorder
    A genetic disorder is an illness caused by abnormalities in genes or chromosomes, especially a condition that is present from before birth. Most genetic disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions....
    
    s. (Beta)

• Cryptanalysis
  • AndrOINC — tries to break
    RSA problem
    In cryptography, the RSA problem summarizes the task of performing an RSA private-key operation given only the public key. The RSA algorithm raises a message to an exponent, modulo a composite number N whose factors are not known. As such, the task can be neatly described as finding the eth roots...
    
     a 1024 bit RSA key used to sign the boot
    System partition and boot partition
    In Microsoft Windows, the system partition and boot partition refer to:*The system partition is a disk partition that contains the boot sector and files such as NTLDR that are needed for booting Windows XP and earlier...
    
     and recovery partitions on the Motorola Milestone phone. (Alpha)
  • Moo! Wrapper - combines BOINC with distributed.net
    Distributed.net
    distributed.net is a worldwide distributed computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization under U.S...
    
    , which is trying to break the RC5
    RC5
    In cryptography, RC5 is a block cipher notable for its simplicity. Designed by Ronald Rivest in 1994, RC stands for "Rivest Cipher", or alternatively, "Ron's Code"...
    
     cipher. (Beta)
  • Enigma@Home — tries to break several Enigma
    Enigma machine
    An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
    
     messages believed to be heretofore unbroken.

• Games
  • Chess960@Home
    Chess960@home
    Chess960@home is a distributed computing project that runs on the BOINC software platform. It aims to create a vast collection of Chess960 games and to publish it on the internet for public use....
    
     — studies Chess960
    Chess960
    Chess960 is a chess variant invented and advocated by former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, originally announced on June 19, 1996 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess, but the starting position of the pieces is randomized along the players' home...
    
     to develop some basics of theory in this chess variant. (Alpha)
  • Sudoku@vtaiwan — tries to determine whether unique-solution sudoku
    Sudoku
    is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...
    
     puzzles with only 16 clues exist. (Alpha)

• Internet
  • WUProp@Home — collects publicly-available statistics about other BOINC projects. (Alpha)

• Mathematics
  • Goldbach's Conjecture — tests Goldbach's weak conjecture
    Goldbach's weak conjecture
    In number theory, Goldbach's weak conjecture, also known as the odd Goldbach conjecture, the ternary Goldbach problem, or the 3-primes problem, states that:...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Mersenne@home — searches for Mersenne prime
    Mersenne prime
    In mathematics, a Mersenne number, named after Marin Mersenne , is a positive integer that is one less than a power of two: M_p=2^p-1.\,...
    
    s. (Alpha)
  • NFS@Home — performs the lattice sieving
    Lattice sieving
    Lattice sieving is a technique for finding smooth values of a bivariate polynomial f over a large region. It is almost exclusively used in conjunction with the number field sieve...
    
     step in the general number field sieve
    General number field sieve
    In number theory, the general number field sieve is the most efficient classical algorithm known for factoring integers larger than 100 digits...
    
     factoring of large integers
    Integer factorization
    In number theory, integer factorization or prime factorization is the decomposition of a composite number into smaller non-trivial divisors, which when multiplied together equal the original integer....
    
    . (Alpha)
  • primaboinca — searches for counterexample
    Counterexample
    In logic, and especially in its applications to mathematics and philosophy, a counterexample is an exception to a proposed general rule. For example, consider the proposition "all students are lazy"....
    
    s to various conjecture
    Conjecture
    A conjecture is a proposition that is unproven but is thought to be true and has not been disproven. Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" in scientific philosophy. Conjecture is contrasted by hypothesis , which is a testable statement based on accepted grounds...
    
    s involving prime number
    Prime number
    A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
    
    s. (Alpha)
  • RSA Lattice Siever — contains several factorization
    Factorization
    In mathematics, factorization or factoring is the decomposition of an object into a product of other objects, or factors, which when multiplied together give the original...
    
     subprojects. (Alpha)
  • SZTAKI Desktop Grid
    SZTAKI Desktop Grid
    SZTAKI Desktop Grid is a BOINC project located in Hungary run by the Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.- History :...
    
     — searches for generalized binary number systems. (Alpha)
  • WEP-M+2 — investigates the factorization
    Factorization
    In mathematics, factorization or factoring is the decomposition of an object into a product of other objects, or factors, which when multiplied together give the original...
    
     of Mersenne prime
    Mersenne prime
    In mathematics, a Mersenne number, named after Marin Mersenne , is a positive integer that is one less than a power of two: M_p=2^p-1.\,...
    
     numbers. (Beta)

• Physics and astronomy
  • Constellation — researches various aerospace
    Aerospace
    Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...
    
    -related science and engineering problems. (Alpha)
  • Cosmology@Home
    Cosmology@Home
    Cosmology@Home is a BOINC distributed computing project, run at the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.- Goals :...
    
     — searches for the model that best describes our universe
    Universe
    The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
    
     and finds the range of physical cosmology
    Physical cosmology
    Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...
    
     models that agree with available data. (Beta)
  • eOn
    EOn (distributed computing project)
    Eon is a distributed computing project for the BOINC client, which uses theoretical chemistry techniques to solve problems in condensed matter physics and materials science. It is a project of the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas.Traditional molecular...
    
     — uses theoretical chemistry
    Theoretical chemistry
    Theoretical chemistry seeks to provide theories that explain chemical observations. Often, it uses mathematical and computational methods that, at times, require advanced knowledge. Quantum chemistry, the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of valency, is a major component of...
    
     techniques to study condensed matter physics
    Condensed matter physics
    Condensed matter physics deals with the physical properties of condensed phases of matter. These properties appear when a number of atoms at the supramolecular and macromolecular scale interact strongly and adhere to each other or are otherwise highly concentrated in a system. The most familiar...
    
     and materials science
    Materials science
    Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Hydrogen@Home — searches for the most efficient method of hydrogen production
    Hydrogen production
    Hydrogen production is the family of industrial methods for generating hydrogen. Currently the dominant technology for direct production is steam reforming from hydrocarbons. Many other methods are known including electrolysis and thermolysis...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Leiden Classical
    Leiden Classical
    Leiden Classical is a distributed computing project run by the Theoretical Chemistry Department of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry at Leiden University...
    
     — general classical mechanics
    Classical mechanics
    In physics, classical mechanics is one of the two major sub-fields of mechanics, which is concerned with the set of physical laws describing the motion of bodies under the action of a system of forces...
    
     grid for any scientist or science student. (Beta)
  • LHC@home
    LHC@home
    LHC@home is a distributed computing project for particle physics on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing platform. LHC@home consists of two applications: SixTrack, which went live in September 2004, is used to upgrade and maintain the particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider ...
    
     — simulate high-energy collisions of protons in the Large Hadron Collider
    Large Hadron Collider
    The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....
    
    
  • Magnetism@home — explores magnetization
    Magnetization
    In classical electromagnetism, magnetization or magnetic polarization is the vector field that expresses the density of permanent or induced magnetic dipole moments in a magnetic material...
    
     patterns in nanotechnology
    Nanotechnology
    Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Orbit@home
    Orbit@home
    orbit@home is a BOINC-based distributed computing project of the Planetary Science Institute. It uses the Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation and Analysis framework to optimize the search strategies that are used to find near-earth objects....
    
     — monitoring the impact hazard posed by near-Earth object
    Near-Earth object
    A near-Earth object is a Solar System object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth. All NEOs have a perihelion distance less than 1.3 AU. They include a few thousand near-Earth asteroids , near-Earth comets, a number of solar-orbiting spacecraft, and meteoroids large enough to...
    
    s. (Alpha)
  • Pirates@home — currently being used to test BOINC's forum software for possible use by another project: Interactions in Understanding the Universe.(Alpha)
  • SLinCA@Home
    SLinCA@Home
    SLinCA@Home is a research project that uses Internet-connected computers to do research in fields of physics and materials science.- Introduction :...
    
     — studies scaling laws in cluster aggregation, an aspect of materials science
    Materials science
    Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • Spinhenge@Home
    Spinhenge@Home
    Spinhenge@home is a distributed computing project for the BOINC client, which performs extensive numerical simulations concerning the physical characteristics of magnetic molecules...
    
     — models the spin
    Spin (physics)
    In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...
    
     of elementary particles using the principles of quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics
    Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
    
    . (Beta)
  • μFluids@Home — simulates two-phase flow in microgravity and microfluidics
    Microfluidics
    Microfluidics deals with the behavior, precise control and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small, typically sub-millimeter, scale.Typically, micro means one of the following features:* small volumes...
    
     problems. (Alpha)

• Unspecialized projects
  • CAS@home — a volunteer computing project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
    Chinese Academy of Sciences
    The Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
    
    . (Alpha)
  • EDGeS@Home — first subproject models the behavior of plasma
    Plasma (physics)
    In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
    
     in fusion power
    Fusion power
    Fusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion processes. In fusion reactions two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus . In doing so they release a comparatively large amount of energy arising from the binding energy due to the strong nuclear force which is manifested...
    
     devices. (Beta)
  • Second Computing — assesses biopolymer
    Biopolymer
    Biopolymers are polymers produced by living organisms. Since they are polymers, Biopolymers contain monomeric units that are covalently bonded to form larger structures. There are three main classes of biopolymers based on the differing monomeric units used and the structure of the biopolymer formed...
    
     dynamics, and models the behavior of clonal colonies
    Clonal colony
    A clonal colony or genet is a group of genetically identical individuals that have grown in a given location, all originating vegetatively from a single ancestor. In plants, an individual in such a population is referred to as a ramet...
    
     in a prairie
    Prairie
    Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
    
     ecosystem. (Alpha)
  • Yoyo@home
    Yoyo@home
    Yoyo@home is a distributed computing project and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing software platform. There are over 7,500 users committing computer cycles to the project. Yoyo@home integrates existing distributing computing projects using the Boinc Wrapper...
    
     — calculates optimal Golomb ruler
    Golomb ruler
    In mathematics, a Golomb ruler is a set of marks at integer positions along an imaginary ruler such that no two pairs of marks are the same distance apart. The number of marks on the ruler is its order, and the largest distance between two of its marks is its length...
    
    s using the OGR application from distributed.net
    Distributed.net
    distributed.net is a worldwide distributed computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization under U.S...
    
    , optimizes the design of the Neutrino Factory
    Neutrino Factory
    The Neutrino Factory is a proposed particle accelerator complex intended to measure in detail the properties of neutrinos, which are extremely weakly interacting fundamental particles that can travel in straight lines through normal matter for thousands of kilometres...
    
    , calculates the Lenstra elliptic curve factorization
    Lenstra elliptic curve factorization
    The Lenstra elliptic curve factorization or the elliptic curve factorization method is a fast, sub-exponential running time algorithm for integer factorization which employs elliptic curves. For general purpose factoring, ECM is the third-fastest known factoring method...
    
    , and analyzes mitochondrial DNA
    Mitochondrial DNA
    Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
    
    .

Other distributed computing projects

• Art
  • Electric Sheep
    Electric Sheep
    Electric Sheep is a distributed computing project for animating and evolving fractal flames, which are in turn distributed to the networked computers, which display them as a screensaver.-Process:...
    
     — an open source
    Open source
    The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
    
     screen-saver to animate and evolve abstract animations.

• Chemistry
  • Chemomentum — undertakes the evaluation and risk assessment
    Risk assessment
    Risk assessment is a step in a risk management procedure. Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat...
    
     of chemicals.

• Cryptanalysis
  • distributed.net
    Distributed.net
    distributed.net is a worldwide distributed computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization under U.S...
    
     - tries to break the RC5
    RC5
    In cryptography, RC5 is a block cipher notable for its simplicity. Designed by Ronald Rivest in 1994, RC stands for "Rivest Cipher", or alternatively, "Ron's Code"...
    
     cipher.
  • M4 Project — decrypts Enigma messages from World War II.

• Digital currency
  • Bitcoin
    Bitcoin
    Bitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer network over which users make transactions that are tracked and verified through this network. The word Bitcoin also refers to the digital currency implemented as the currency medium for user transactions over this network...
    
     — a peer-to-peer network based anonymous digital currency. Currently the worlds most powerful network : Network Hashrate PetaFLOPs/s : 143.21
  • Namecoin — a peer-to-peer network based anonymous digital currency. The added ability to support a decentralised domain name system currently as a .bit.

• Engineering
  • BREIN — uses the Semantic Web
    Semantic Web
    The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
    
     and multi-agent system
    Multi-agent system
    A multi-agent system is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems that are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or a monolithic system to solve...
    
    s to build simple and reliable grid
    Grid computing
    Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
    
     systems for business
    Business
    A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
    
    , with a focus on engineering
    Engineering
    Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
    
     and logistics management
    Logistics Management
    The term Logistics Management or supply chain management is that part of Supply Chain Management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective, forward, and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption...
    
    .

• Internet
  • A-Ware — is developing a stable, supported, commercially exploitable, high quality technology to give easy access to grid resources.http://www.a-ware-project.eu/
  • Amagit.COM — employs a distributed web crawling
    Distributed web crawling
    Distributed web crawling is a distributed computing technique whereby Internet search engines employ many computers to index the Internet via web crawling. Such systems may allow for users to voluntarily offer their own computing and bandwidth resources towards crawling web pages...
    
     platform to build a search index.http://www.amagit.com/
  • AssessGrid — addresses obstacles to wide adoption of grid technologies by bringing risk management and assessment to this field, enabling use of grid computing in business and society.http://www.assessgrid.eu/
  • Cohesion Platform — a Java-based modular peer-to-peer multi-application desktop grid computing platform for irregularly structured problems developed at the University of Tübingen (Germany).http://www.cohesion.de/cms
  • D4Science — establishes networking, grid-based, and data-centric e-Infrastructures that accelerate multidisciplinary research by overcoming barriers related to heterogeneity, sustainability and scalability.
  • DIMES
    DIMES
    is a subproject of the in the , .It is studying the structure and topology of the Internet to obtain a very accurate map and annotate it with:* delay loss* in the future available bandwidth* link capacity.- Concept and objective:...
    
     — maps the structure and evolution of the Internet infrastructure, letting users see how the Internet looks from their home.
  • Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) — a series of projects funded by the European Commission; links over 70 institutions in 27 European countries to form a multi-science computing grid infrastructure for the European Research Area, letting researchers share computer resources.
  • GridCOMP — provides an advanced component platform for an effective invisible grid.http://gridcomp.ercim.org/
  • GridECON — takes a user-oriented perspective and creates solutions to grid challenges to promote widespread use of grids.http://www.gridecon.eu/
  • Hours HarmOny and Useful Resource Sharing — attempts to make use of the trust management and network economics
    Network economics
    Network economics refers to business economics that benefit from the network effect. This is when the value of a good or service increases when others buy the same good or service...
    
     to implement the heterogeneous resource sharing. Currently focusing on the resource allocation in the science grid like Teragrid and OSG. This project is run by the MIST group of Computer Science at Wayne State University
    Wayne State University
    Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
    
    .
  • Java Heterogeneous Distributed Computing
    Java Heterogeneous Distributed Computing
    Java Heterogeneous Distributed Computing refers to a programmable Java distributed system which was developed at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. It allows researchers to access the spare clock cycles of a large number of semi-idle desktop PCs. It also allows for multiple problems...
    
     (JHDC) — an open source programmable Java distributed computing system.
  • Legion
    Legion (software)
    Legion is a computer software system variously classified as a distributed operating system, a peer-to-peer system, metacomputing software, or middleware...
    
     — a grid computing platform developed at the University of Virginia.
  • Majestic-12 — uses a distributed web crawler
    Web crawler
    A Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, Web spiders, Web robots, or—especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters.This process is called Web...
    
     program to index web sites for a distributed search engine.http://www.majestic12.co.uk/
  • NESSI-GRID http://www.nessi-europe.com/ — aims to provide a unified view for European research in service architectures and software infrastructures that will define technologies, strategies and deployment policies fostering new, open, industrial solutions and societal applications that enhance the safety, security and well-being of citizens.
  • neuGRID — develops a new user-friendly grid-based research e-infrastructure enabling the European neuroscience community to perform research needed for the pressing study of degenerative brain diseases, for example, Alzheimer's disease
    Alzheimer's disease
    Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
    
    .
  • OMII-Europe — an EU-funded project established to source key software components that can interoperate across several heterogeneous grid middleware platforms.
  • OMII-UK
    OMII-UK
    is an open-source organisation that empowers the UK research community by providing software for use in all disciplines of research. Their mission is to cultivate and sustain community software that is important to research....
    
     — provides free open source software and support to enable a sustained future for the UK e-research community.
  • OurGrid
    OurGrid
    OurGrid is an opensource grid middleware based on a peer-to-peer architecture.OurGrid is mainly develop at the Federal University of Campina Grande , which also run an OurGrid instance named "OurGrid" too, in production since December 2004. Anyone can freely and easily join it to gain access to...
    
     — aims to deliver grid technology that can be used today by current users to solve present problems. To achieve this goal, it uses a different trade-off compared to most grid projects: it forfeits supporting arbitrary applications in favor of supporting only Bag-of-Tasks applications.
  • RESERVOIR — aims to increase the competitiveness of EU economy by introducing a powerful ICT infrastructure to support the setup and deployment of services on demand, at competitive costs, across disparate administrative domains, while assuring quality of service.
  • ScottNet NCG — a distributed neural computing grid. A private commercial effort in continuous operation since 1995. This system performs a series of functions including data synchronization amongst databases, mainframe systems, and other data repositories. E-commerce transaction processing, automated research and data retrieval, content analysis, web site monitoring, scripted and dynamic user emulation, shipping and fulfillment API integration and management, RSS and NNTP monitoring and analysis, real time security enforcement, and backup/restore functions.

• Mapping
  • TilesAtHome (t@h) — renders osmarender maps from OpenStreetMap data. The osmarender, maplint and captionless layers are made in this way.

• Mathematics
  • Background Pi — computes decimal digits of pi
    Pi
    ' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...
    
     using digit extraction method.
  • distributed.net
    Distributed.net
    distributed.net is a worldwide distributed computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization under U.S...
    
     - finds optimal Golomb rulers.
  • Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
    Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
    The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available computer software to search for Mersenne prime numbers. The project was founded by George Woltman, who also wrote the software Prime95 and MPrime for the project...
    
     (GIMPS) — is dedicated to finding ever larger Mersenne prime
    Mersenne prime
    In mathematics, a Mersenne number, named after Marin Mersenne , is a positive integer that is one less than a power of two: M_p=2^p-1.\,...
    
    s.
  • NFSNET — uses the general number field sieve
    General number field sieve
    In number theory, the general number field sieve is the most efficient classical algorithm known for factoring integers larger than 100 digits...
    
     to factor increasingly large integers.
  • Pi Segment — a Chinese volunteer computing project to look for specific digits (in binary) of Pi
    Pi
    ' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...
    
     and make volunteer computing more popular in China. The project was completed in 2007 and announced the 2,000,000,000,000,000th bit of Pi
    Pi
    ' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...
    
     is 0.
  • Seventeen or Bust
    Seventeen or Bust
    Seventeen or Bust is a distributed computing project started in March 2002 to solve the last seventeen cases in the Sierpinski problem.-Goals:...
    
     — attempts to find prime numbers in 17 sequence
    Sequence
    In mathematics, a sequence is an ordered list of objects . Like a set, it contains members , and the number of terms is called the length of the sequence. Unlike a set, order matters, and exactly the same elements can appear multiple times at different positions in the sequence...
    
    s, to solve the Sierpinski problem. So far primes in 11 sequences have been found.
  • Twin Prime Search
    Twin Prime Search
    Twin Prime Search is a distributed computing project that looks for large twin primes. It uses the programs LLR and NewPGen . It was founded on April 13, 2006 by Michael Kwok...
    
     — searches for large twin prime
    Twin prime
    A twin prime is a prime number that differs from another prime number by two. Except for the pair , this is the smallest possible difference between two primes. Some examples of twin prime pairs are , , , , and...
    
    s
  • Wieferich@Home
    Wieferich@Home
    Wieferich@Home is a distributed computing project searching for Wieferich primes. It is the first Czech distributed computing project. The only known Wieferich primes are 1093 and 3511, found in 1913 and 1922, respectively. It is not known if there exist infinitely or finitely many Wieferich...
    
     — searches for new Wieferich prime
    Wieferich prime
    In number theory, a Wieferich prime is a prime number p such that p2 divides 2p − 1 − 1, therefore connecting these primes with Fermat's little theorem, which states that every odd prime p divides 2p − 1 − 1...
    
    s

• Physics/Astronomy
  • Galaxy Zoo
    Galaxy Zoo
    Galaxy Zoo is an online astronomy project which invites members of the public to assist in the morphological classification of large numbers of galaxies. It is an example of citizen science as it enlists the help of members of the public to help in scientific research. An improved version—Galaxy...
    
     — classifies galaxy types from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-filter imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project was named after the Alfred P...
    
    . Part of the Zooniverse
    Zooniverse (citizen science project)
    Zooniverse is a citizen science web portal that grew from the original Galaxy Zoo project. It hosts numerous projects which allow users to participate in scientific research from classifying galaxies to collating climate data...
    
     group of citizen science projects.
  • Stardust@home
    Stardust@home
    Stardust@home is a citizen science project that encourages volunteers to search images for tiny interstellar dust impacts. The project began providing data for analysis on August 1, 2006....
    
     — scans/analyzes the collection grid from a recent NASA mission to capture particles from a comet.
  • Muon1 DPAD — genetic-based method to design + optimise a particle accelerator for use in the Neutrino Factory
    Neutrino Factory
    The Neutrino Factory is a proposed particle accelerator complex intended to measure in detail the properties of neutrinos, which are extremely weakly interacting fundamental particles that can travel in straight lines through normal matter for thousands of kilometres...
    
    

• Miscellaneous
  • The CCL Game and The CCL Winter Game Optimal Solution Finder — uses brute-force search
    Brute-force search
    In computer science, brute-force search or exhaustive search, also known as generate and test, is a trivial but very general problem-solving technique that consists of systematically enumerating all possible candidates for the solution and checking whether each candidate satisfies the problem's...
    
     to find optimal solutions for a Flash clone of The Incredible Machine.
  • BEinGRID Business Experiments in Grid — also see IT-tude.com
  • Gstock
    Gstock
    GStock is a distributed computing project formed in 2006 for stock market analysis. It is enabled by users that volunteer to download and run a software client and donate some idle capacity of their computer processing unit . The gathered computing power is used to search for an investment strategy...
    
     Investment Strategy Search — is dedicated to finding ever better technical analysis
    Technical analysis
    In finance, technical analysis is security analysis discipline for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis incorporate technical analysis, which being an aspect of active management stands...
    
     strategies.
  • MoneyBee
    MoneyBee
    MoneyBee is a distributed computing project in the fields of economics, finance and stock markets, that generates stock forecasts by application of artificial intelligence with the aid of artificial neural networks. MoneyBee acts as a screensaver, thus the user hardly notices the program running on...
    
     — generates stock forecasts by applying artificial intelligence with the aid of artificial neural networks.
  • Perplex City
    Perplex City
    Perplex City was a long-term alternate reality game presented by Mind Candy, a London-based development team. The first "season" of the game had players looking for "The Receda Cube" , a priceless scientific and spiritual artifact to the people of a fictional metropolis known as "Perplex City",...
    
     — an alternate reality game
    Alternate reality game
    An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
    
     created by the British company Mind Candy
    Mind Candy
    Mind Candy is a British entertainment company, formed in 2003 by UK internet entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith, and based in Shoreditch, London, England...
    
    , features puzzle cards which can be solved to earn points on a leaderboard and earn clues to help understand the game. One of these cards, "The 13th Labour", features what players have determined to be a block of RC5
    RC5
    In cryptography, RC5 is a block cipher notable for its simplicity. Designed by Ronald Rivest in 1994, RC stands for "Rivest Cipher", or alternatively, "Ron's Code"...
    
     64-bit encryption, which is now being brute-force search
    Brute-force search
    In computer science, brute-force search or exhaustive search, also known as generate and test, is a trivial but very general problem-solving technique that consists of systematically enumerating all possible candidates for the solution and checking whether each candidate satisfies the problem's...
    
    ed, using a distributed computing client created by one player.
  • SoundExpert — estimates sound quality of different audio devices and technologies (lossy encoders at the moment only, such as mp3, aac, wma, etc.) by means of blind listening tests conducted over the Internet.http://www.soundexpert.info
  • Storage@home
    Storage@home
    Storage@home is a distributed storage infrastructure designed to store massive amounts of scientific data across a large host of volunteer machines.The project was developed by some of the Folding@home team at Stanford University.- Function :...
    
     — distributed storage infrastructure developed to solve the problem of backing up and sharing petabytes of scientific results using a distributed model of volunteer managed hosts. Data is maintained by a mixture of replication and monitoring, with repairs done as needed.
  • StrataGenie — searches for trading strategies
    Trading strategy
    In finance, a trading strategy is a predefined set of rules for making trading decisions.Traders, investment firms and fund managers use a trading strategy to help make wiser investment decisions and help eliminate the emotional aspect of trading. A trading strategy is governed by a set of rules...
    
     in intraday stock market data and distributes trading signals to subscribers.http://www.stratagenie.com

Physical infrastructure projects

These projects attempt to make large physical computation infrastructures available for researchers to use:

• Berkeley NOW Project
• Institut Ruđer Bošković (IRB) Debian Cluster Components
• Open Science Grid
• SARA Computing and Networking Services in Netherlands
• Teragrid Ended. Replaced by XSEDE Project https://www.xsede.org/
• VirginiaTech

External links

• DistributedComputing.info — lists ongoing, future and past projects
• Flash tutorials - how to attach BOINC projects
• How-To: Join Distributed Computing projects that benefit humanity
• Volunteer@Home.com — all about volunteer computing