ProtonMail donates computing resources to the fight against Covid-19

Proton, the company behind ProtonMail, is donating computing resources in its Zurich data centre to researchers working on a vaccine for Covid-19.

Proton, the company behind ProtonMail, is donating computing resources in its Zurich data centre to researchers working on a vaccine for Covid-19. (ProtonMail)

Proton, the company behind ProtonMail, is donating computing resources in its Zurich data centre to researchers working on a vaccine for Covid-19.

Part of Proton's server capacity has been donated to the University of Washington's Rosetta@home project to help generate protein models of the coronavirus. These models will help researchers understand how coronavirus reacts to its environment and aid in the development of vaccines and drugs.

With the resources of the Proton Zurich datacenter, Proton is now among the top 1% of contributors towards the Rosetta@home project. The Proton infrastructure is designed with a high level of redundancy thus there are always resources set aside for emergency situations, such as a failure of a primary datacenter. These servers are being repurposed in the current situation to support Rosetta@home.

The Rosetta@home project crowd-sources computing power from organisations and individuals all around the world to help with its work. By downloading the free Rosetta@home programme, personal laptops or desktops can generate these protein models when the devices are idle, much like a screen saver. Proton's servers will be doing this very thing but on a much larger scale and the company is encouraging its users to get involved as well.

ProtonMail is also giving users free additional storage, adding more VPN servers to maintain performance for the world's remote workers and offering free email and VPN services to organisations assisting in the fight against Covid-19.

"If you feel you qualify, please send basic information about your organization to enterprise+covid@protonmail.com" to avail free email and VPN services, the company blog explained.

"We are living through a situation that is unprecedented in modern history. In these times, the need for secure and private online communications is greater than ever, and we are committed to supporting both customers and non-customers in this time of need. We hope also that by donating the computing power of our Zurich datacenter to science, we can accelerate the search for a cure which is the only permanent solution to COVID-19. The team at the University of Washington are doing vital work and we hope that our resources can allow this critical research to be completed faster," Andy Yen, CEO of ProtonMail said speaking about the initiative.