CPUsage provides developers with a SETI@home-style grid computing platform. CPUsage offers computer owners rewards in exchange for access to their unused CPU resources. It then licenses those resources to customers for CPU intensive applications such as scientific analysis and graphic rendering. All the data stored on users’ computers is encrypted.
CPUsage offers customers a pay as you go billing model similar to cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services EC2.
Instead of paying computer users cash, CPUusage awards points for usage. The points can then be redeemed at an online store that offers gift cards for various national chain stores and restaurants.
CPUsage competes with other commercial grid computing providers such as Parabon, Plura and Univa. Also, IBM offers a grid computing service called World Community Grid for organizations doing work that benefits humanity. Cloud computing services that offer high-performance computing, such as Amazon Web Services Cluster GPU Instances and Cloudnumbers.com, are also competitors. SpotCloud provides a similar service with an exchange for excess capacity.
The company was founded by Jeff Martens in 2010. CPUsage is bootstrapped, but Martens says the company is in the process of raising a round of funding.
