Folding@Home records milestone as users contribute processing power to fight COVID-19

The growing number of COVID-19 cases in every part of the world is putting a big strain on healthcare workers. These frontliners are already stretched thin as most hospitals and clinics are at or even over capacity already. World leaders are already urging their citizens to refrain from going out amid the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, scientists working in the medical field are doing their best to come up with a cure or vaccine. Now, the people behind Folding@Home recently announced a major milestone in the continued fight against the pandemic.

For those who are just hearing about the program, it works by crowdsourcing computing power to solve molecular interactions related to protein dynamics. As such, these can be used for various scientific and medical tasks that would normally require expensive supercomputers. TechCrunch reports that the platform is recording a massive number of users lending their systems to help out.

According to the numbers indicated by the Folding@Home servers, the current computing power is now maxing out at an exaflop. What this means is that it is operating at 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second. Basically the world is now looking at the most powerful computer actively executing a program to help overcome COVID-19. So far, there are no treatments available for the highly contagious virus.

While some lucky individuals do not experience life-threatening symptoms, others are not so fortunate. These folks will develop breathing problems brought about by pneumonia that will require supportive care. Some end up recovering, while those with existing comorbidities are at a higher risk of death. Therefore, it's a race to develop a cure or vaccine that will effectively end its spread on a global scale. Those who have the GPU and CPU cycles to spare can help out by downloading the app from the official website.

While the Exaflop milestone sounds promising on paper, researchers believe there is still a long way to go before a eureka moment surfaces. The people behind the Folding@home project recently published a statement on a blog post. It read "This initial wave of projects focuses on better understanding how these coronaviruses interact with the human ACE2 receptor required for viral entry into human host cells, and how researchers might be able to interfere with them through the design of new therapeutic antibodies or small molecules that might disrupt their interaction."