World Community Grid (WCG) is an effort to create the world's largest volunteer computing platform to perform scientific research that benefits humanity. Launched on November 16, 2004, with proprietary Grid MP client from United Devices and adding support for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) in 2005, World Community Grid eventually discontinued the Grid MP client and consolidated on the BOINC platform in 2008. In September 2021, it was announced that IBM transferred ownership to the Krembil Research Institute of University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario.
World Community Grid uses unused processing power of consumer devices (PCs, Laptops, Android Smartphones, etc.) to analyse data created by the research groups that participate in the grid. WCG projects have analysed data related to the human genome, the human microbiome, HIV, dengue, muscular dystrophy, cancer, influenza, Ebola, Zika virus, virtual screening, rice crop yields, clean energy, water purification and COVID-19, among other research areas.
There are currently four active projects and 28 completed projects. Several of these projects have published peer-reviewed papers based on the analysis of the data generated by WCG. These include an OpenZika project paper on the discovery of a compound (FAM 3) that inhibits the NS3 Helicase protein of the Zika virus, thus reducing viral replication by up to 86%; a FightAIDS@home paper on the discovery of new vulnerabilities on the HIV-1 Capsid protein which may allow for a new drug target; and a FightAIDS@home paper on new computational drug discovery techniques for more refined and accurate results.
History In 2003, IBM and other research participants sponsored the Smallpox Research Grid Project to accelerate the discovery of a cure for smallpox."IBM builds grid for smallpox research" . ComputerWeekly.com. 2003-02-06. Retrieved 2014-04-28. The smallpox study used a massive distributed computing grid to analyse compounds' effectiveness against smallpox. The project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates for developing into smallpox treatments. In the first 72 hours, 100,000 results were returned. By the end of the project, 44 strong treatment candidates had been identified. Based on the success of the Smallpox study, IBM announced the creation of World Community Grid on November 16, 2004, with the goal of creating a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be processed.
World Community Grid initially only supported Windows, using the proprietary Grid MP software from United Devices which powered the grid.org distributed computing projects. Demand for Linux support led to the addition in November 2005 of open source Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) software which powers projects such as SETI@home and Climateprediction. Mac OS and Linux support was added since the introduction of BOINC. In 2007, the World Community Grid migrated from Grid MP to BOINC for all of its supported platforms.
In September 2021, IBM announced that it had transferred ownership of the World Community Grid to the Krembil Research Institute.
Scale of the project As of , World Community Grid had over active user accounts, with over active devices. Over the course of the project, more than cumulative years of computing time have been donated, and over work units have been completed.
Operation
The World Community Grid software uses the unused computing time of Internet-connected devices to perform research calculations. Users install WCG client software onto their devices. This software works in the background, using spare system resources to process work for WCG. When a piece of work or workunit is completed, the client software sends it back to WCG over the Internet and downloads a new workunit. To ensure accuracy, the WCG servers send out multiple copies of each workunit. Then, when the results are received, they are collected and validated against each other.
World Community Grid offers multiple humanitarian projects under a single umbrella. Users are included in a subset of projects by default, but may opt out of projects as they choose.
Even though WCG makes use of open source client software, the actual applications that perform the scientific calculations may not be. However, several of the science applications are available under a free license, although the source is not available directly from WCG.
Potential problems
The World Community Grid software increases CPU usage by consuming unused processing time; in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such calculations were meant to reduce "wasted" CPU cycles. With modern CPUs, where dynamic frequency scaling is prevalent, increased usage makes the processor run at higher frequency,Although on Linux systems the CPUfreq frequency scaling governor can be configured otherwise with the parameter ignore_nice_load. increasing power usage and heating counter to power management. Additionally, because of an increasing focus on power performance, or performance per watt, connecting old/inefficient computers to the grid will increase the total/average power required to complete the same calculations.
The BOINC client avoids slowing the computer by using a variety of limits that suspend computation when there are insufficient free resources. Unlike other BOINC projects, World Community Grid set the BOINC defaults conservatively, making the chances of computer damage extremely small. The default CPU throttle is 60%. The throttle is coarse-grained; for example, if usage is set to 60% it will work at 100% for 3 seconds, then at 0% for 2 seconds, resulting in an average decrease of processor use.
An add-on program for Windows computers – TThrottle – can solve the problem of overheating by directly limiting the BOINC project's use of the host computer. It does this by measuring the CPU and/or the GPU temperature and adjusts the run time accordingly. It also uses a shorter switching time of less than one second, resulting in less temperature change during switching.
Statistics and competition The contributions of each user are recorded and user contribution statistics are publicly available. Due to the fact that the processing time of each workunit varies from computer to computer, depending on the difficulty of the workunit, the speed of the computer, and the amount of idle resources available, contributions are usually measured in terms of points. Points are awarded for each workunit depending on the effort required to process it.
Upon completing a workunit, the BOINC client will request the number of points it thinks it deserves based on software benchmarks (see BOINC Credit System#Cobblestones). Since multiple computers process the same workunit to ensure accuracy, the World Community Grid servers can look at the points claimed by each of those computers. The WCG servers disregard statistical outliers, average the remaining values and award the resulting number of points to each computer.
Within the grid, users may join teams that have been created by organizations, groups, or individuals. Teams allow for a heightened sense of community identity and can also inspire competition. As teams compete against each other, more work is done for the grid overall.
Outreach World Community Grid recognizes companies and organizations as partners if they promote WCG within their company or organization. As of April 2021, WCG had 452 partners.
Also, as part of its commitment to improving human health and welfare, the results of all computations completed on World Community Grid are released into the public domain and made available to the scientific community.
Scientific results
Since its launch, more than thirty projects have run in the World Community Grid. Some of the results include:
In February 2014, the Help Fight Childhood Cancer project scientists announced the discovery of 7 compounds that destroy neuroblastoma cancer cells without any apparent side effects. This discovery, made with the support of the WCG volunteers, is a positive step towards a new treatment. The project has announced that it is seeking a collaboration with a pharmaceutical company in order to develop the compounds into treatments. Given the success of the project, the scientists have stated that they are already planning a follow-up project which will focus on other pediatric cancers, possibly in collaboration with a newly formed Pan-Asian oncology group, of which they are a founding member. As of July 2012, the Human Proteome Folding Project has published several papers using data from WCG. These include a paper on validation methods and a new database of protein structure and function predictions; a paper on the identification of proteins that regulate human processes; a paper on the analysis of the genomes from five plant families and their proteomes, for which WCG was used in the creation of over 29,000 protein structures; a paper on the proteome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The GO Fight Against Malaria project reported the discovery of several molecules that are effective against Malaria and Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (including TDR-TB, for which there is no treatment available). The project also tested for new molecules against MRSA, Filariasis and Bubonic Plague. Laboratory testing continues in order to turn those molecules into possible treatments. GFAM was also the first project ever to perform a billion different docking calculations. A paper was published in January 2015, with two more pending submission. In June 2015, the project reported that of the two "hits" discovered against a drug-resistant tuberculosis strain, several "analogs" have been synthesized, the best one of which inhibits the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is relatively non-toxic to mammalian cells. Lack of funding prevented further research into the data. The Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together project scientists reported the discovery of several new Dengue protease inhibitors, most of which also inhibit the West Nile virus protease. A handful of these have already entered "crucial pre-clinical pharmacokinetic and efficacy studies". In November 2014, an update reported that the scientists have a drug lead that disables a key enzyme that allows the Dengue virus to replicate. It has also shown the same behaviour in other flaviviruses, such as the West Nile virus. No negative side effects such as toxicity, carcinogenicity or mutagenicity have been observed, making this drug lead a very strong antiviral drug candidate for these viruses. The scientists are now working to synthesize variants of the molecule to improve its activity and enter planned pre-clinical and clinical trials. However, in an October 2018 update, the research team reported that none of their current designs had produced a highly potent dengue protease inhibitor that could be tested in vivo. In June 2013, the Clean Energy Project published a database of over 2.3 million organic molecules which have had their properties characterized. Of these, 35,000 molecules have shown the potential to double the efficiency over organic solar cells currently being produced. Before this initiative, scientists knew of just a handful of carbon-based materials that were able to convert sunlight into electricity efficiently. In February 2010, the FightAIDS@Home project scientists announced that they have found two compounds which make a potentially new class of AIDS-fighting drugs possible. The compounds attach to the virus at newly discovered binding sites, and thus can be used to "enhance existing therapies, treat drug-resistant strains of the disease, and slow the evolution of drug resistance in the virus."