CRAY SHASTA SUPERCOMPUTER TO POWER WEATHER FORECASTING FOR THE U.S. AIR FORCE

Stra­te­gic Part­ner­ship with Oak Ridge Natio­nal Lab High­lights First Cray Shas­ta Super­com­pu­ter for Ope­ra­tio­nal Wea­ther Forecasting

SEATTLE, Aug. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Glo­bal super­com­pu­ter lea­der Cray Inc.(Nasdaq:CRAY) today announ­ced that the first Cray Shas­ta™ super­com­pu­ting sys­tem for ope­ra­tio­nal wea­ther fore­cas­ting and meteo­ro­lo­gy will be acqui­red by the Air Force Life Cycle Manage­ment Cen­ter in part­ner­ship with Oak Ridge Natio­nal Labo­ra­to­ry. The powerful high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting capa­bi­li­ties of the new sys­tem, named HPC11, will enable hig­her fide­li­ty wea­ther fore­casts for U.S. Air Force and Army ope­ra­ti­ons world­wi­de. The con­tract is valued at $25 million.

We’re exci­ted with our Oak Ridge Natio­nal Labo­ra­to­ry stra­te­gic partner’s sel­ec­tion of Cray to pro­vi­de Air Force Weather’s next high per­for­mance com­pu­ting sys­tem,” said Ste­ven Wert, Pro­gram Exe­cu­ti­ve Offi­cer Digi­tal, Air Force Life Cycle Manage­ment Cen­ter at Hans­com Air Force Base in Mas­sa­chu­setts, and a mem­ber of the Seni­or Exe­cu­ti­ve Ser­vice. “The system’s per­for­mance will be a signi­fi­cant increase over the exis­ting HPC capa­bi­li­ty and will pro­vi­de Air Force Wea­ther ope­ra­tors with the abili­ty to run the next gene­ra­ti­on of high-reso­lu­ti­on, glo­bal and regio­nal models, and satis­fy exis­ting and emer­ging war­figh­ter needs for envi­ron­men­tal impacts to ope­ra­ti­ons planning.”

Oak Ridge Natio­nal Labo­ra­to­ry (ORNL) has a histo­ry of deploy­ing the world’s most powerful super­com­pu­ters and through this part­ner­ship, will pro­vi­de super­com­pu­ting-as-a-ser­vice on the HPC11 Shas­ta sys­tem to the Air Force 557th Wea­ther Wing. The 557th Wea­ther Wing deve­lo­ps and pro­vi­des com­pre­hen­si­ve ter­restri­al and space wea­ther infor­ma­ti­on to the U.S. Air Force and Army. The new sys­tem will fea­ture the revo­lu­tio­na­ry Cray Slingshot™ inter­con­nect, with fea­tures to bet­ter sup­port time-cri­ti­cal nume­ri­cal wea­ther pre­dic­tion workloads, and will enhan­ce the Air Force’s capa­bi­li­ties to crea­te impro­ved wea­ther fore­casts and wea­ther thre­at assess­ments so that Air Force mis­si­ons can be car­ri­ed out more effectively.

The HPC11 sys­tem will be the first Shas­ta deli­very to the pro­duc­tion wea­ther seg­ment, and we’re proud to share this mile­stone with ORNL and the Air Force,” said Peter Unga­ro, pre­si­dent and CEO at Cray. “The years of inno­va­ti­on behind Shas­ta and Slingshot and the suc­cess of pri­or gene­ra­ti­ons of Cray sys­tems con­ti­nue to demons­tra­te Cray’s abili­ty to sup­port deman­ding 24/7 ope­ra­ti­ons like wea­ther fore­cas­ting. This is a gre­at exam­p­le of the upco­ming Exas­ca­le Era brin­ging a new set of tech­no­lo­gies to bear on chal­len­ging pro­blems and empowe­ring the Air Force to more effec­tively exe­cu­te on its important mission.”

HPC11 will be ORNL’s first Cray Shas­ta sys­tem, as well as the first super­com­pu­ting sys­tem with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC™ pro­ces­sors for use in ope­ra­tio­nal wea­ther fore­cas­ting. HPC11 will join the 85% bas­ti­on of wea­ther cen­ters that rely on Cray, and will fea­ture eight Shas­ta cabi­nets in a dual-hall configuration.

We are incre­di­bly exci­ted to con­ti­nue our stra­te­gic col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with Cray to deli­ver the first Shas­ta super­com­pu­ter to the U.S. Air Force, hel­ping to impro­ve the fide­li­ty of wea­ther fore­casts for U.S. mili­ta­ry ope­ra­ti­ons around the glo­be,” said For­rest Nor­rod, seni­or vice pre­si­dent and gene­ral mana­ger, Dat­a­cen­ter and Embedded Sys­tems Group, AMD. “The 2nd Gen AMD EPYC pro­ces­sors pro­vi­de excep­tio­nal per­for­mance in high­ly com­plex workloads, a neces­sa­ry com­po­nent to power cri­ti­cal wea­ther pre­dic­tion workloads and deli­ver more accu­ra­te forecasts.”

The sys­tem is expec­ted to be deli­ver­ed in Q4 2019 and accept­ed in ear­ly 2020.

About Cray Inc.
Cray Inc. (Nasdaq:CRAY) com­bi­nes com­pu­ta­ti­on and crea­ti­vi­ty so visio­na­ries can keep asking ques­ti­ons that chall­enge the limits of pos­si­bi­li­ty. Dra­wing on more than 45 years of expe­ri­ence, Cray deve­lo­ps the world’s most advan­ced super­com­pu­ters, pushing the boun­da­ries of per­for­mance, effi­ci­en­cy and sca­la­bi­li­ty. Cray con­ti­nues to inno­va­te today at the con­ver­gence of data and dis­co­very, offe­ring a com­pre­hen­si­ve port­fo­lio of super­com­pu­ters, high-per­for­mance sto­rage, data ana­ly­tics and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence solu­ti­ons.  Go to www.cray.com for more information.

Safe Har­bor Statement
This press release con­ta­ins for­ward-loo­king state­ments within the mea­ning of Sec­tion 21E of the Secu­ri­ties Exch­an­ge Act of 1934 and Sec­tion 27A of the Secu­ri­ties Act of 1933, inclu­ding, but not limi­t­ed to, state­ments rela­ted to Cray’s abili­ty to deli­ver a sys­tem that meets the Air Force’s and ORNL’s requi­re­ments. The­se state­ments invol­ve cur­rent expec­ta­ti­ons, fore­casts of future events and other state­ments that are not his­to­ri­cal facts. Inac­cu­ra­te assump­ti­ons and known and unknown risks and uncer­tain­ties can affect the accu­ra­cy of for­ward-loo­king state­ments and cau­se actu­al results to dif­fer mate­ri­al­ly from tho­se anti­ci­pa­ted by the­se for­ward-loo­king state­ments. Fac­tors that could affect actu­al future events or results include, but are not limi­t­ed to, the risk that the sys­tem requi­red by the Air Force and ORNL is not deli­ver­ed in a time­ly fashion or does not per­form as expec­ted and such other risks as iden­ti­fied in the Company’s quar­ter­ly report on Form 10‑Q for the quar­ter ended June 30, 2019, and from time to time in other reports filed by Cray with the U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exch­an­ge Com­mis­si­on. You should not rely undu­ly on the­se for­ward-loo­king state­ments, which app­ly only as of the date of this release. Cray under­ta­kes no duty to publicly announ­ce or report revi­si­ons to the­se state­ments as new infor­ma­ti­on beco­mes available that may chan­ge the Company’s expectations.

CRAY, Shas­ta and Slingshot are regis­tered trade­marks of Cray Inc. in the United Sta­tes and other count­ries. Other pro­duct and ser­vice names men­tio­ned her­ein are the trade­marks of their respec­ti­ve owners.

AMD, the AMD logo, EPYC, and com­bi­na­ti­ons the­reof are trade­marks of Advan­ced Micro Devices, Inc.