The Raspberry Pi is a versatile device adaptable to all sorts of uses — but can it be a super computer too?
Oracle think so, as it’s is showing off a super computer it’s built — baked? — from 1024 Raspberry Pi’s, 49 custom printed Pi holders, 22 network switches, 18 USB power supplies, and lots and lots of wiring.
And just to ram home the “big things often come in small packages” mantra fully the chassis housing the cluster apes the TARDIS, the trans-dimensional time machine piloted by the titular character in British Sci-Fi series ‘Doctor Who’.
The Pi-packed machine is running Oracle Autonomous Linux and Java (naturally). It’s currently being put to use advancing scientific understanding rendering selfies at the Oracle OpenWorld event happening in San Francisco, USA between September 16-19.
ServeTheHome have seen the machine up close and report that Oracle’s jammy Raspberry Pi Super Computer is a pinch more powerful than claimed as the TARDIS-styled tech actually has 1060 Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ units, not 1024.
There’s also a rebadged Supermicro 1U Xeon storage server lurking somewhere inside (presumably in its cloister room) to network boot all of the systems.
Perhaps most disappointingly is that, in real life, the cluster doesn’t look quite as TARDIS-y as I was hoping.
Is stringing a thousand slices of Raspberry Pi together the most efficient or cost effective way to build a super computer? Probably not, but this thing is an impressive feat all the same.