We are often asked, “How does Altumea differ from Golem or how is it better?” No wonder they seem similar at first sight since they are both blockchain-related projects for decentralized computing. This however, appears to be the only similarity between them. Altumea differs from Golem same way as Airbnb differs from Uber: the projects are aimed at solving quite distinct problems and have a lot of dissimilarities on top of that. Let’s take a look at them.
What is Altumea
Altumea is an open-market platform for distributed peer-to-peer GPU-powered computations. It is designed to perform highly parallel calculations and uses Etherium-based blockchain for validating results and transactions. Any owner of a graphics processing unit can lease its power for calculations to scientific projects, AI, machine and deep learning, image processing or rendering.
What is Golem
Golem is also a p2p network for computations. It serves as a global, open source, decentralized supercomputer that anyone can access. It is made up of the combined power of users’ machines. The project offers developers to build up and test relevant applications on their own. As for now, the platform offers a ready-made solution for image rendering only, created as an example.
The Difference
- The main difference is the purpose: Altumea offers the solution for GPU computing, while Golem deals with general CPU calculations. We’ve chosen this path because massive parallel GPU processing is in higher demand in the field of science and engineering than standard CPU processing. GPUs shine in tasks that require applying mathematical operations to massive swaths of data. However, they are currently carried out only with the help of expensive equipment or renting an costly cloud service. We are determined to change that.
- Software developers are in the center of Golem’s system. The project encourages the community to build up their own applications for calculations, publish them for some commission and receive a fee when other people use them. At the same time, Altumea offers immediate access to computing power. It provides a ready-made set of tools for GPU computing. You only need to write the script and download the data to the network.
- Golem team created a tool for rendering as an example, but programs for other purposes are to be developed by users and uploaded to the network for a fee. Other users are required to pay for them to have access to its use Altumea’s set of cases will be wide from the beginning. We are going to provide ready-made solutions not only for rendering, but for machine learning and AI, cryptanalysis, statistic calculations and other high-performance computing tasks.
- Unlike Golem, the CUDA case repository in Altumea will be open and free for the community. Everyone is welcome to upload their calculation cases and take whatever available as a sample.
- Golem uses blockchain for payment system. Altumea moves further and plans to implement both payment and reputation systems based on blockchain. Moreover, Altumea will use nods and master nods to verify the results of calculations and ensure their delivery. Executors will be combined in groups where users with high reputation perform calculations, and others verify it and gain the points. The algorithm of Altumea will choose the best providers of computing power for each task.
Here is an illustration. Imagine, you are a meteorologist and you want to model the path of an approaching hurricane. If you choose to use Golem, you will need to hire a developer who will create a program for calculations, or buy one from Golem repository to create what you need. Thereafter, a data-scientist writes a script for calculations in this program from scratch. Now you can use the Golem network for general CPU calculations, which actually makes little to no sense since it will take a lot of time and of course money.
Another option is Altumea, designed specifically for GPU computing. Here, you do not have to create a program for calculation, the platform already has it. It also has a free set of different scenarios. You can take one as a template or can get some ideas for your case. Next, you download the data, set the desired parameters for price and reputation, download the data and the platform finds suitable performers. The calculations will be more cost and time effective when compared to CPU processing.
That’s it. You will not call Uber when you need a place to sleep, will you?
