Golem is the first fully decentralized computer network and a global marketplace for computing power. Golem connects computers in a peer-to-peer network and enables users to rent resources of other users’ machines. They can be used for computer graphics rendering, realistic simulations, machine learning, scientific calculations, and other resource-demanding tasks. Similar cloud computing services are offered by centralized cloud providers Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM.
Put differently, Golem is a global decentralized supercomputer network that congregates the processing power of computers on the platform. Like Uber or Airbnb, Golem empowers people to rent their spare resources. At the same time, anyone in need can speed up or perform heavy tasks which would otherwise be too hefty for their hardware.
Such services are already offered by already existing cloud computing giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others. Nevertheless, Golem hopes a peer-to-peer network incentivizing people to share and rent computing power would beat centralized services, offering cheaper, and more convenient services.
If it’s still difficult to see how leasing your computing power works, imagine the following post-production scene from any recent Hollywood blockbuster. They cost millions to produce, and a big chunk of production money goes to expensive CGI depicting breathtaking landscapes, dragons, superheroes, explosions, or other captivating effects.
Fundamentally, they are created by the teams of artists. They design the characters, elements, objects, environments and plot out the motion. Afterward, they send the designs with further instructions to a cloud computing service, which renders everything. It means calculating all the tiniest pixels of the scenes to create stunning images we enjoy. Every particle, dust, light and other objects move on their own, so all their movements have to be calculated to an absolute precision to make up a realistic impression of a real world. It takes simulating the entire world within a computer, so rendering intense CGI scenes requires massive computing power. And that’s where Golem comes to play.
Presently, Golem can assist anyone who works with graphics on any scale. Besides, anyone with spare computing resources can generate income. It’s estimated that an entire cloud computing market is worth nearly $130 billion. In the future, Golem plans to expand beyond graphics with machine learning being the next objective.
The Golem ecosystem revolves around the three types of stakeholders: resource requestors, providers, and software developers. Every one of them has different incentives to participate in the ecosystem.
At the moment, Golem runs its first version for CGI computing only. It’s called Brass, and it supports two templates: Blender and Luxrender, which are two common open-source frameworks for making computer graphics.
If you, for instance, need to render a beautifully animated scene made in one of these programs, then all you need to do is select the appropriate template, add all the necessary info into the task manager and send it to the Golem network.
On the other side of the process, a resource provider retrieves all the available task offers and chooses the best one. Then, he or she replies to the proposal suggesting a price and relevant computing power info. If the conditions satisfy the requestor, the needed files are transferred to the service provider via IPFS, and the computing process begins. Once it is complete, he or she sends the outcome back to the requestor.
In the final stage of the process, the task manager passes the information to different nodes for result verification. If all is well and good, the Golem payment system receives an order sent via Ethereum smart contract and executes the payment.
Another integral part of the Golem network is the reputation system. It serves as a way to find and verify valuable and reliable network members and keeps the system fair and square. It uses measures like the accuracy of results or payment confirmation time and plays a crucial role in the Golem ecosystem where all network users have equal privileges.
Besides the reputation system, other noteworthy Golem components include Application Registry and Transaction Framework. The Application Registry allows developers to publish their Golem dapps that help the network. The Transaction Framework is a set of requirements every developer must meet when adding a transaction model in a self-made Golem application.
It’s important to note upcoming versions of Golem will include the Task Definition Framework, which will allow the requestors to write their own code for specific tasks. Performing tasks outside of the predefined templates will only come in a later software version called Stone.
