Ask HN: Feasibility of a GPU Service Provider?

5 points

8 years ago

Say you go out and buy a couple 2080's and put them into an Ubuntu Server box. Could you use that box to provide GPU support to local computers (either in the same building or other buildings on the same ISP within, say, a mile)?

Of course, NVIDEA offers gaming as a service so it must be possible on some level (https://www.nvidia.com/object/cloud-gaming.html).

Is there software you could install on a Windows machine that would act like a GPU driver but would really send those commands over the internet to your local GSP (GPU Service Provider)?

You could use the same service for other things:

- crypto (of course)

- cracking hashes

- training machine learning models (probably won't get much use of that in your neighborhood, though).

Maybe you could even charge by the number of calculations done. Only five months ago someone created a related post on reddit about vectordash (https://www.reddit.com/r/gpumining/comments/86ofw2/rent_out_your_gpu_compute_to_ai_researchers_and/) but that was more for AI than gaming.

Now seems like the right time for this, right? GPU prices are crazy and GPUs are in demand for all sorts of applications. So if you could get the same performance by renting a 2080 for you know, $20 a month why wouldn't you?

Is there any existing software for this type of application?

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