GW was an optic neural AI designed to maintain the Patriots' system of control over the United States. Named after the first U.S. President George Washington, the AI was programmed to censor all forms of digital information, including communications, Internet traffic, and media broadcasts. It could also control all weaponry, nuclear and conventional, of the four branches of the U.S. military through a tactical computer network. As of 2009, GW was said to be the only system in the world with a parallel processing capacity of 980 trillion hammets.