64 Raspberry Pis + Legos = Supercomputer

By Tuan Mai
published

Computer engineers combine 64 Raspberry Pis and a Lego-built framework to create a DIY supercomputer.

Earlier this year, Raspberry Pi lured the world in with the scent of a $35, linux-powered mini-PC. Since its release, the device has been used for a number of creative purposes. But one team of engineers at the University of Southampton has decided one Raspberry Pi just isn't enough. Instead, the group gathered up a whopping 64 mini-computers and combined them to create one gigantic, super Raspberry Pi.

Taking good notice of Moore's Law, the team realized the cost of creating a supercomputer has dropped exponentially over the years, allowing them to create one for as little as £2,500. (approx. $4,000 USD) Combining 64 Raspberry Pi devices, 64 16GB SD cards and a modular framework made of Legos, the team was able to make a system with 11 GHz of processing power and 1TB of memory.

Led by professor Simon Cox, the team has kindly created a detailed guide for anybody looking to create their own Raspberry Pi supercomputer. Head on over to the Southampton page to check it out!

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Tuan Mai
Tuan Mai
Tuan Mai is a Los Angeles based writer and marketing manager working within the PC Hardware industry. He has written for Tom's Guide since 2010, with a special interest in the weird and quirky.
60 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cscott_it
    Give a man something inexpensive to build upon, and the sky is the limit. Example, the wireless digital camera mod that was in the news a month ago. I like to hear news articles like this one.
    Reply
  • azathoth
    11Ghz of single ARM core processing power... Wouldn't exactly consider that a supercomputer. But none the less it sure looks awesome!
    Reply
  • alidan
    how many flops? i believe current super computers require 6 ot 9 tflop of double precision.
    even the best of the current consumer cpus onlt puts out less than .2tflop of single,
    and our gpus that can put out 3-4tflops single grind to about 1tflop of double

    so, again, the question is how many flops can this push.
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    GHz is not a measure of processing power and doesn't work that way with multiple cores, especially cores that are not only not on the same die or even the same CPU or even on the same board...
    Reply
  • >Some kid is sitting on a billion Rpis
    >I still haven't received the ONE I ordered months ago
    I sure hope you guys don't do this.
    Reply
  • leo2kp
    Overpriced. I spent $2,500 on my gaming rig with 4GHz 6-core, equivalent to 24GHz of "processing power" if you don't include the HyperThreading.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    That's a neat picture but I'm so sick of hearing about raspberry pi 'this' and raspberry pi 'that'.
    Reply
  • ashinms
    ...Harder to program than a graphics card, less processing power than one of my 5750s. Still cool, though.... I may have to build one of these if Intel ever puts AMD out of business!
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    10425372 said:
    Overpriced. I spent $2,500 on my gaming rig with 4GHz 6-core, equivalent to 24GHz of "processing power" if you don't include the HyperThreading.

    That'd be dozens, if not hundreds, of times faster than this "super computer".
    Reply
  • master_chen
    Raspberry Piss
    Reply