Via listings discovered on the government's Federal Business Opportunities website, it has come to light that the United States Air Force ordered 300 PlayStation 3 consoles late last month. The purpose of the order? Unfortunately, the USAF hasn't engineered a real life Warhawk fighter and is in need of a ready-built simulator. Instead, the listing details that: "The Air Force Research Laboratory is conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors. The processors in the Sony PlayStation 3 are the only brand on the market that utilizes the specific cell processor characteristics needed for this program at an acceptable cost." The original order also called for 300 PlayStation 3 controllers and 300 PlayStation 3 memory card adapters, though an amendment to the order has now stuck such accessories from the request.

The Cell processor is indeed an excellent example of the possible future of multi-core computing. Though PC-CPUs from AMD and Intel are running 4-cores these days, the Cell Processor's 9-core architecture (8-processing cores, 1-management core) is a rather different animal derived from somewhat more forward looking computer science. Multi-core computing along these lines is loosely thought to be a prerequisite for next-generation artificial intelligence, though whether the Air Force is hoping to build a Skynet system on a fleet of PS3s or is experimenting with much more benign topics remains unknown. Its also possible the USAF is simply out to get some Blu-ray action going on now that the format war is decided.