Taipei, Taiwan, April 2, 2020– GIGABYTE Technology is calling upon all gamers to use their PC’s to beat COVID-19. Since the novel coronavirus was first reported in December 2019, the infectious respiratory disease COVID-19 has spread rapidly, causing a global outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives. Taking proactive action to fight against this pandemic, GIGABYTE has teamed up with computing project Folding@Home (FAH) in their efforts to improve existing drugs and develop life-saving therapies through protein simulations. 

Established in 2000, FAH is a distributed computing project founded by Stanford University that uses idle PCs around the world, performing molecular dynamics simulations of protein dynamics for medical research. FAH was first introduced to GIGABYTE through PCMR, the hardware gaming enthusiast community founded by Pedro Valadas in 2011. “Gigabyte is a natural partner for this cause”, says Valadas. “They have been fully supportive of the Folding@Home initiative”. Valadas, who joined the FAH Communication Board in early 2019, added, “I've seen the care and respect they have for their community firsthand, and it mirrors well the goals of the project: teaming up for a cause that is greater than us”.

Amid the outbreak, as FAH pivoted their network towards COVID-19, GIGABYTE stepped in to provide a hardware sponsorship boosting their research potential with ten high-performance PC’s. “GIGABYTE is pleased to participate in this partnership and contribute to global efforts to the fight the coronavirus” states Mr. Dandy Yeh, Chairman of GIGABYTE. Chairman Yeh added, “Let’s Team Up, Fight On to beat COVID-19!”

The PC’s will be given to Folding@Home labs around the world. The Bowman Lab is leading the charge against COVID-19 and is responsible for many of FAH’s several advances in the field of protein simulation and increasing antibiotic resistance overall. “It feels wonderful to connect with GIGABYTE and spread knowledge about our research” says Anton Thynell, who is the Head of Communications and Collaborations at FAH. According to Thynell, the high-end computers are not only much appreciated but “will certainly speed up research processes and donate computer power directly to the scientists”. In March alone, FAH has seen active contributors increase from 30,000 to 770,000 volunteers. At this time of writing, the combined effort has resulted in 1.5 exaflops in computing power (over 1.5 sextillion operations per second). The team has already identified possible locations on the coronavirus proteins for drugs to target.

The hardware sponsorship will be followed by a digital giveaway campaign under “Team GIGABYTE”. Gamers who join the team and contribute will be eligible for product giveaways under GIGABYTE and gaming brand AORUS. The campaign aims to inspire all individuals with a PC to volunteer their computing power and join the fight. By teaming up together, GIGABYTE believes firmly that “Gamers Can Save The World”.

Learn more about Folding@Home:

https://foldingathome.org

Media Contact:

Van Luong, Marketing Manager

vanluong@gigabyteusa.com

About GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE is a visionary engineering leader in the world of tech that uses its hardware expertise, patented innovations, and industry leadership to create, inspire, and advance. Renowned for over 30 years of award-winning excellence, GIGABYTE is a cornerstone in the HPC community, providing businesses with server and data center expertise to accelerate their success. At the forefront of evolving technology, GIGABYTE is devoted to invent smart solutions that enable digitalization from edge to cloud, and allow customers to capture, analyze, and transform digital information into economic data that can benefit humanity and "Upgrade Your Life". Please visit https://www.gigabyte.com/ for more information.