Major French Bank Now Supporting Humanitarian Research Through IBM's World Community Grid

PARIS, March 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SILCA, the information technology and services arm for Crédit Agricole Group, has formally signed on to donate its surplus computer processing power to IBM's (NYSE: IBM) World Community Grid in support of humanitarian research.

In just its first month of participation, after installing the World Community Grid app on 1,100 employee workstations, it contributed the equivalent of three years of computing time to scientific research.

World Community Grid is an IBM-funded and managed program that advances scientific research by harnessing computing power "donated" by volunteers around the globe. This resource is the equivalent of a virtual supercomputer that helps enable scientists to more quickly conduct millions of virtual experiments. These experiments aim to pinpoint promising drug candidates for further study.

SILCA, which ensures the security and digital transformation of Crédit Agricole Group, first proposed this project at Crédit Agricole Group's "Innovation Day" event, and won the company's top award, chosen from among 60 initiatives described by the bank's subsidiaries. Thanks to this project, SILCA will contribute to significant research studies in many areas, including Zika, tuberculosis, AIDS, Ebola, cancer and clean energy.

For Philippe Mangematin, in charge of innovation development at SILCA, its participation is "a powerful message for Crédit Agricole to send about its commitment to a social responsibility agenda." 

To date, World Community Grid has connected researchers to half a billion U.S. dollars' worth of free supercomputing power. This resource to accelerate scientific discovery, partially hosted in IBM's cloud, has been fueled by 720,000 individuals and 440 institutions from 80 countries who have donated more than 1 million years of computing time on more than 3 million desktops, laptops, and Android mobile devices. Their participation has helped identify potential treatments for childhood cancer, more efficient solar cells, and more efficient water filtration materials.

World Community Grid is enabled by Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), an open source software platform developed at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Join World Community Grid today to enable your computer or Android device for a humanitarian project.

Contact(s) information

Ari Fishkind 
IBM Media Relations 
01 (914) 499-6420 
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM Corporation