According to GIMPS, this is the first time a prime number was not found by an ordinary PC, but rather a “‘cloud supercomputer’ spanning 17 countries” that utilized an Nvidia A100 GPU chip to make the initial diagnosis. The primary architect of this find is Luke Durant, who worked at Nvidia as a software engineer for 11 years
I don’t know why Nvidia is mentioned at all, except the hardware. That’s cool that this person found the number, but Nvidia didn’t do anything except employ them once upon a time and make a product that does a thing. It’s not justified to celebrate the maker of a stove when a soup kitchen feeds everyone.
This is a win for Luke and GIMPS in general, and I’m happy for them.
This is the first such prime that was discovered using GPU cloud computing. It’s not just an incredible new discovery, but also a demonstration of what this type of hardware network may be capable.
I didn’t use to do this, but with the world being on fire I feel like I should ask whether the amount of energy put into finding huge primes is really worth it.
Why is anything worth the effort?
Cause research into primes makes computer security stronger. Cause research in general can make new discoveries that can lead to unexpected improvements in life.
Cause we need to know the answer to everything.
Cause it’s better than mining crypto or doing AI training models over and over.
They mention nvidia because that’s the hardware used to find/prove.
I find it quite relevant to have the person/ group, the strategy or method, and the device used (including chipsets). Most articles on prime number discovery will mention all these things.
The fact that he worked there seems pretty irrelevant tho.
Wake up babe, new prime number just dropped.
Is it 3?
I bet it’s 3.
24 is the highest number.
To save you a click: 2136,279,841-1
Formatting is off.
2^136,279,841 - 1
2 to the power of something, then subtract one to make it an odd number.
I’m pretty sure that’s the telephone number of a flat in Islington where I once went to a party…
Babe wake up, new prime number just dropped.
