Claude ported CADO-NFS to GPUs and factored RSA-896 in 10 days
A user had Claude port CADO-NFS to run on GPUs, then orchestrated a fleet of up to 2048 GPUs on scavenged idle capacity. The run consumed roughly 30 GPU-years over 10 days to factor RSA-896. No new algorithmic improvements were made, factoring remains exponential, and deployed keys are not threatened.
The credit belongs first to the people who built the number field sieve and CADO-NFS over several decades, and to the teams who set the earlier records. This run used their algorithm and much of their code.
- madars
More details: https://x.com/sweis/status/2101484464807596264
I had Claude port CADO-NFS to run on GPUs. Then it orchestrated a fleet to run on scavenged idle capacity. It ran with a max of 2048 GPUs for about of 30 GPU-years over 10 days.
I asked Claude if it had a message for a public: “The credit belongs first to the people who built the number field sieve and CADO-NFS over several decades, and to the teams who set the earlier records. This run used their algorithm and much of their code.”
Also to clarify:
- No new algorithmic factoring improvements.
- It’s still exponential.
- No new threats to deployed keys.
- tristanj
If you've already paid for and reserved a whole cluster of GPUs, any idle capacity is capacity you've already paid for. Using it is effectively free. So might as well use it to solve fun math puzzles.
Though, it would make more financial sense to mine crypto.
- someguydave
kinda bearish for the data center rollouts if the spare compute can be used to solve math puzzles instead of training LLMs
- blackdahlia313
Enjoy the bounty