Cray’s Shas­ta Super­com­pu­ter for the Exas­ca­le Era to Enable High-per­for­mance Com­pu­ting Solu­ti­ons to Boost Next-gene­ra­ti­on Sci­en­ti­fic Mode­ling for U.K. Defence Organization

SEATTLE, Nov. 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Glo­bal super­com­pu­ter lea­der Cray, a Hew­lett Packard Enter­pri­se com­pa­ny, today announ­ced that the United Kingdom’s Ato­mic Wea­pons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) has sel­ec­ted the Cray Shastaä super­com­pu­ter to sup­port secu­ri­ty and defence of the U.K. The Shas­ta sys­tem, pur­po­se-built for the exas­ca­le era, was cho­sen due to its abili­ty to run mixed workloads and appli­ca­ti­ons at the best total cost of owner­ship (TCO) for a sys­tem across five years.

AWE’s super­com­pu­ter, named Vul­can, will fea­ture a sin­gle Shas­ta super­com­pu­ter with expec­ted per­for­mance of more than 7 peta­flops. Shas­ta will play an inte­gral role in main­tai­ning the U.K.’s nuclear deter­rent. “High-per­for­mance com­pu­ting is a cri­ti­cal aspect of AWE,” said Andy Herd­man, head of HPC at AWE. “It under­pins the vast majo­ri­ty of our sci­ence-based pro­grams, and we’re con­ti­nu­al­ly loo­king for ways to enhan­ce and sup­port this important work. This is why we cho­se Shas­ta, for its uni­que and powerful fea­tures, as well as its abili­ty to pro­vi­de opti­mal TCO.”

The U.K. Minis­try of Defence is respon­si­ble for the pro­gram and ste­ward­ship of AWE, which is ope­ra­ted under con­tract by AWE Manage­ment Limi­t­ed. The Estab­lish­ment has been at the fore­front of U.K. nuclear deter­rence for more than 60 years. Pre­di­ca­ted on the Com­pre­hen­si­ve Nuclear Test Ban Trea­ty which pro­hi­bits emis­si­on of nuclear yield, AWE must con­ti­nu­al­ly veri­fy the safe­ty and relia­bi­li­ty of nuclear war­heads through sci­ence-based and com­pu­ta­tio­nal pro­gramming. Shas­ta will fur­ther extend AWE’s sophisti­ca­ted sci­en­ti­fic and tech­no­lo­gi­cal capabilities.

“We are incre­di­bly proud to be cho­sen by AWE to sup­port their important mis­si­on,” said Peter Unga­ro, pre­si­dent and CEO at Cray. “Shas­ta will bring Exas­ca­le Era tech­no­lo­gies to bear on AWE’s chal­len­ging mode­ling and simu­la­ti­on data-inten­si­ve workload and enable the con­ver­gence of AI and ana­ly­tics into this same workload, on a sin­gle system.”

Vulcan’s Shas­ta archi­tec­tu­re will include the Cray Slingshot™ inter­con­nect, AMD EPYC 7542 pro­ces­sors and Cray Clus­terS­tor® Lust­re sto­rage. The high per­for­mance sto­rage sys­tem will offer near­ly 100 giga­bytes per second of I/O performance.

“We are plea­sed to once again part­ner with Cray to deli­ver a powerful new super­com­pu­ter that will sup­port cri­ti­cal rese­arch efforts in the U.K.,” said For­rest Nor­rod, seni­or vice pre­si­dent and gene­ral mana­ger, AMD Dat­a­cen­ter and Embedded Sys­tems Group. “Our 2nd Gene­ra­ti­on AMD EPYC™ pro­ces­sors pro­vi­de unpre­ce­den­ted per­for­mance while hel­ping to redu­ce TCO, key ele­ments for dri­ving suc­cess for AWE in the coming years.”

About Cray Inc.
Cray, a Hew­lett Packard Enter­pri­se com­pa­ny, 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.

About AWE

AWE plays a cru­cial role in natio­nal defence by pro­vi­ding and main­tai­ning war­heads for Trident, the UK’s nuclear deterrent

AWE is con­trac­ted to the Minis­try of Defence (MOD) through a Govern­ment-owned Con­trac­tor Ope­ra­ted (GOCO) arran­ge­ment. Whilst our sites and faci­li­ties remain in govern­ment owner­ship, their manage­ment, day to day ope­ra­ti­ons, and the main­ten­an­ce of the nuclear stock­pi­le is con­trac­ted to a pri­va­te com­pa­ny AWE Manage­ment Limi­t­ed (AWE ML). AWE ML is a con­sor­ti­um com­pri­sing three equal part­ners: Ser­co Group plc, the Lock­heed Mar­tin Cor­po­ra­ti­on and Jacobs Engi­nee­ring Group. For fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on, visit: http://www.awe.co.uk

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