A new world record in human powered computing has been set by MIT students who used bicycles to power one of the institute’s supercomputers for 20 minutes. As part of the ‘Innovate or Die’ pedal-powered machine contest a nuclear fusion reaction was modelled by the sweat of the students’ brows.

More arithmetic calculations were computed “than were done on the entire earth up to 1960”, according to Techworld. A very energy efficient supercomputer was used though – a chip in the SiCortex machine apparently uses about 8 watts of power, compared to an average laptop chip that could draw 100 watts (Xconomy). Of course there is more than one chip in the supercomputer – Techworld says the “low-powered” system drew 1,200 watts.

“By harnessing the energy creation processes of the sun, our research opens the possibility of limitless energy. But we still need to do our parts individually, such as by using energy-efficient computers in our research,” says John Wright, a member of MIT’s Plasma Science & Fusion Center (Gizmag and Cycling News).