A former Nvidia employee discovered the world's largest known prime number and all it took was some free software and a few thousand datacenter GPUs

A Nvidia HGX H100 server at the Yotta Data Services Pvt. data center in Navi Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Mar. 14, 2024. Yotta Data Services is buying thousands of Nvidia chips to offer AI capabilities in India.
(Image credit: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Earlier this month, Luke Durant, a former Nvidia employee from San Jose, California gained one of the rarer accomplishments in mathematics. With the help of just a few thousand graphics cards spread across 17 countries' datacenters and some free software, Durant discovered the world's largest known prime number: 2136,279,841-1.

I'd write that out for you, but I don't think the website would appreciate having to display its more than 41 million digits. Don't worry, though: I downloaded the 18.3 MB .txt file recording Durant's discovery and everything seems to be in order, as I'm sure you'll agree:

If you want to pore over all those digits yourself, 2136,279,841-1 is available for download in its entirety from The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a 28-year-old website that looks exactly like you would imagine. GIMPS provides free software that attempts to calculate numbers in a rare category of prime numbers called Mersenne primes.

If it's been too long since the relevant math class: A prime number is any number that's only divisible by 1 and itself. Mersenne primes, meanwhile, are even more unique, being prime numbers that are one less than a power of 2.

If you're wondering how you even discover a prime number in the first place, it's a matter of verification. Sure, if you just mash a bunch of digits out on your keyboard, there's a chance it might be a prime number—but you'd have to calculate whether it's divisible by any smaller number to prove it. Unsurprisingly, the amount of necessary calculation skyrockets as the number of digits in the potential prime number increases.

And Durant's newly-discovered Mersenne prime, which according to GIMPS is over 16 million digits larger than the previous prime number record, took a hell of a lot of computing. While using "thousands of server GPUs, spanning 24 datacenter regions over 17 countries" to identify potential primes with GIMPS, an Nvidia A100 GPU in Dublin, Ireland scored big when it identified 2136,279,841-1 as a potential candidate.

Of course, then it had to be verified, which required further calculations through a battery of primality tests on different hardware platforms. But the results are clear—to some mathematicians somewhere, I'm sure. I'll take their word for it.

Durant's discovery marks the first time GIMPS cloud computing has been used for the discovery of a Mersenne prime. Durant's network of number-crunching GPUs, GIMPS says, "ends the 28-year reign of ordinary personal computers finding these huge prime numbers."

According to GIMPS, Durant decided to undertake the Mersenne prime search as a "demonstration that GPUs can be used for more than AI." While I'm sure prime numbers aren't quite the investor buzzword that AI's been the last couple years, I admire the motivation regardless.

TOPICS
News Writer

Lincoln has been writing about games for 11 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

Read more
Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
This spectacular GB202 die shot shows just how massive Nvidia's RTX 5090 GPU is but it's not the largest chip it's ever shoehorned into a gaming graphics card
Nvidia RTX 5090
RTX 5090 prototype GPU with 24,576 cores reportedly leaks hinting at possible 800 W 5090 Ti or Titan monster
A still from a YouTube video showing the El Capitan supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The world's fastest nuke-simulating supercomputer is now online, boasting peak performance of 2.79 quintillion calculations per second and other numbers my pea-sized brain can't comprehend
The Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 on an LED-lit table at CES 2025
Jen-Hsun reckons Nvidia has driven the 'cost of computing down by 1,000,000 times'
Nvidia H100 chips inside a server room at the Yotta Data Services Pvt. data center, in Navi Mumbai, India
Turns out there's 'a big supercomputer at Nvidia… running 24/7, 365 days a year improving DLSS. And it's been doing that for six years'
SUQIAN, CHINA - JANUARY 27, 2025 - An illustration photo shows the logo of DeepSeek and ChatGPT in Suqian, Jiangsu province, China, January 27, 2025. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
China's DeepSeek chatbot reportedly gets much more done with fewer GPUs but Nvidia still thinks it's 'excellent' news
Latest in Graphics Cards
Nvidia RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from different angles
Nvidia says it really has sorted RTX 50-series black screen issues this time around as yet another driver fix finds its way to release
AMD RX 7900 XT with its original packaging.
AMD clawed back 7% graphics market share from Nvidia at the end of 2024, but the outlook for the whole industry in 2025 looks iffy
A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
'Don't despair' says AMD to PC gamers as it continues to 'encourage' AIBs to supply MSRP-priced 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs
Nvidia RTX 5070 Founders Edition graphics card from various angles
Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics cards are said to be revealed 'in about 10 days' and are expected to 'be on the shelf a month later'
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip inside it.
Nvidia denies reports that the 'missing ROPs' debacle is hitting its RTX 50 laptop GPUs and could delay their launch
A plethora of RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards at an angle on a dark gradient background
AMD's new RX 9070 GPUs sold out within 10 mins at launch, unless you were willing to pay ever more ludicrous prices
Latest in News
A soldier looks out over the Verdansk map, as a single tear rolls down his cheek.
The original Verdansk map is returning to Call of Duty: Warzone, to celebrate which we get a soldier crying to Nat King Cole
More than 5 years after launch, Control gets a surprise patch that lets everyone play the Hideo Kojima mission
Swen Vincke
Swen Vincke stamps seal of approval on Stardew Valley mod that yoinks the Baldur's Gate 3 cast out of D&D and into a cosy pastoral life
Nvidia RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from different angles
Nvidia says it really has sorted RTX 50-series black screen issues this time around as yet another driver fix finds its way to release
A collection of upturned CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays on a carpeted floor
Warner Bros says it will replace certain DVDs damaged by 'disc rot', but you might not get the same movie you sent in for replacement
Maximillian from Evil Genius 2
Rebellion CEO says Evil Genius 3 could happen but wonders 'what else could we do with it other than a base-building game?'