Einstein@Home crunches 10 years of data in two weeks to find a pulsar sought after for over a decade
Change the World
Use your computer, tablet, phone, or any device with a supported processor to contribute to scientific, humanitarian, and foundational research
Accessible
Computing
For Everyone
Ask Bigger Questions
Redefine Your Impact
Access the limitless potential of the BOINC Network and complete your research faster, cheaper, and with the attention of thousands of curious minds
From universities to companies to citizen scientists, volunteer developers, and communicators, the BOINC Network and its contributors work to improve the lives of everyone by putting science in the hands of everyone
The Technology
The BOINC infrastructure consists of two main components: a project server system and client software. The project server, hosted individually by each BOINC project, stores and distributes project data to the client software running on volunteers’ host computers. Once the host completes the data crunching task, known as a work unit, it returns the results to the project server.
To date, BOINC has been the driving force behind numerous computationally intensive research programs, such as pulsar identification, the creation of patient specific cancer treatments, the simulation of candidate molecules for next-generation solar panels, along with many others. While BOINC has been used primarily for science and mathematics, it can host data from any open or commercial field so long as the data can be formatted for BOINC’s processes.
Scaleable
The BOINC distributed computing network scales horizontally and is resource fluid. A project in need of computation need only convince more people to direct their machines to the project. Crunchers of a completed project redirect their machines to other projects with work.
Cost Effective
The cost of setting up a BOINC project is the cost of setting up and maintaining the project server system plus any expenditure on engagement, communication, and outreach. It is common for projects to run with near zero operating costs.
Efficient
BOINC is highly efficient at completing problems that can be broken into individual tasks, regardless of their complexity. The infrastructure is developed with project admins in mind and minimizes disruptions to task completion.
Redundant
BOINC can run the same task multiple times simultaneously on computers from all corners of the planet. Results can be compared, averaged, stored and reviewed, or thrown away. There is virtually no risk of losing progress on a project due to network or client hardware failure.
Did You Know
More than 60 projects
Over 200 publications
Since 2002
The Network
BOINC is comprised of established scientific, commercial, and institutional researchers; Ph.D candidates and undergraduates; enthusiasts, and coders; groups, organizations, universities, and corporations; as well as citizen scientists, data analysts, makers, tinkerers, artists, entrepreneurs, and individuals of all backgrounds. Every participant and developer seeks to advance science, research, and data analytics through game theory, education, and engagement, or by participating in a distributed computing network.
Universities
Departments of over 13 universities from around the world use BOINC for their research.
Corporations
IBM’s World Community Grid dedicates a great deal of resources to BOINC development and runs several projects under their umbrella.
Organizations
Organizations like CERN, TACC, and the Institute for Protein Design engage and educate countless participants while achieving their research goals.
The commons
Enthusiasts, hobbyists, passionate contributors, and every-day citizens of science and engineering host countless research projects.
The Community
Discord
Join developers, project admins, and community members for general discussion, live help and troubleshooting, and the live recordings of the BOINC Radio podcast!
Slack
Join developers, project admins, and community members for development focused discussions.
GitHub
Dive into the BOINC codebase, solve an issue, or add a feature.