Stanford University’s disease studying distributed computing project Folding@Home has won Sony’s PS3 a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by becoming the largest network of its kind anywhere in the world, Spong reports.

For those not familiar with the project, Folding@Home is a programme that connects a user’s PS3 or PC to the Stanford University computing network, allowing the project to tap into the console’s computing power in an effort to further its analysis of various diseases.

670,000 PS3 users have downloaded the software, and in September the combined efforts of gamers helped the project surpass the petaflop barrier – meaning at this stage it was able to carry out one quadrillion floating point operations. By the end of September PS3 users alone were already supplying enough firepower to hit this benchmark.

“To have PS3 play such a large role in allowing Folding@Home to be honoured by Guinness World Records is truly incredible”, Sony stated. “This record is clear evidence of the power of PS3 and the contributions that it is making to the Folding@Home network, and more importantly, scientific research.”