Upgrade Will Allow Researchers to Tackle Critical National Security Problems
SEATTLE, WA, Feb 06, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX News Network) -- Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) today announced that Sandia National Laboratories has entered into an agreement to upgrade its "Red Storm" supercomputer, already one of the world's largest systems, from 124 teraflops (one trillion floating points per second) to 284 teraflops. This significant boost in performance will allow researchers and scientists to run even higher resolution models to increase the accuracy of critical computer simulations.
Sandia and Cray co-designed Red Storm as part of a contract under the National Nuclear Security Agency's (NNSA) Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC). The Red Storm design became the basis for the highly scalable and successful Cray XT(TM) line of massively parallel processor (MPP) supercomputers that have been installed at a number of prestigious supercomputing centers around the world.
"This is another significant step in the evolution of this important system," said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray. "Initially a 40 teraflops machine, this is its second major upgrade, adding in Cray XT4(TM) technology to take Red Storm to seven times its original performance level. Cray's entire line of MPP systems is built to be uniquely expandable and upgradeable, and Sandia has substantially leveraged their original investment while achieving the Department of Energy's NNSA program's ambitious computational goals. This new performance level will allow researchers to tackle even larger computational problems including calculations that have never been successfully completed before."
The upgrade, scheduled to take place this summer, will include integrating Quad Core AMD Opteron(TM) processors into a substantial portion of the system as well as increasing the available memory to 2GB per computational core across the entire system.
"We're pleased to continue our successful partnership with Cray," said Robert Meisner, Deputy Director of ASC at the NNSA. "The more than twofold increase in computing power provided by this upgrade will provide important capacity for tackling national security problems."
About Sandia National Laboratories
Since 1949 Sandia National Laboratories has developed science-based technologies that support U.S. security. The laboratory primarily focuses on nuclear weapons, energy and infrastructure assurance, nonproliferation verification, defense systems and assessments, and antiterrorism. It is an NNSA laboratory. Go to
www.sandia.gov for more information.
About Red Storm
Commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy and NNSA to address computing and simulation requirements, Cray and Sandia National Laboratories jointly produced the Red Storm supercomputer. Red Storm is an MPP supercomputer with distributed memory, multiple-instruction and multiple-data architecture to provide exceptional computational power. It is not only one of the world's fastest supercomputers, but offers ease of use, system balance, sustained performance and reliability. Go to
http://www.sandia.gov/ASC/redstorm.html for more information.
About Cray Inc.
As a global leader in supercomputing, Cray provides highly advanced supercomputers and world-class services and support to government, industry and academia. Cray technology enables scientists and engineers to achieve remarkable breakthroughs by accelerating performance, improving efficiency and extending the capabilities of their most demanding applications. Cray's Adaptive Supercomputing vision will result in innovative next-generation products that integrate diverse processing technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to surpass today's limitations and meeting the market's continued demand for realized performance. Go to
www.cray.com for more information.
