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Red Storm Over Switzerland: CSCS Will Be First in Europe to Make New Cray XT3 System Available for Science
Joint Initiative With PSI Will Exploit Five-Fold Increase in Computing Power for Scientific Breakthroughs and High-Profile International Collaborations
MANNO, SWITZERLAND AND SEATTLE, WA -- 2005 년 4 월 5 일 --The Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) will be the first organization in Europe to make Cray Inc.'s (NASDAQ: CRAY) powerful new Cray XT3™ massively parallel processing (MPP) supercomputer and its innovative "Red Storm" technology available for scientific research.
In a joint initiative with Switzerland's Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), CSCS has ordered a Cray XT3 system with 1,100 AMD Opteron™ processors and peak performance of 5.9 trillion calculations per second (teraflops). When the new system, nicknamed "Horizon," begins operating in mid-2005, it will be one of Europe's most powerful supercomputers and will boost CSCS' computing capability more than five-fold.
"Horizon will enable Swiss researchers to make important breakthroughs in material science, environmental science, life science, astronomy, chemistry, and other scientific fields. This powerful new supercomputer will also make CSCS an attractive partner for high-value, high-profile collaborations within Europe and beyond," said CSCS General Manager Marie-Christine Sawley.
According to PSI's Andreas Adelmann, who initiated the Horizon project, "This new state-of-the-art scientific instrument will allow us to simulate complex problems that were only recently considered intractable. Problems that once would have taken months to complete will now take hours or minutes."
CSCS and Cray will establish a joint collaboration program aimed at enhancing and optimizing existing scientific applications for the Cray XT3 system, as well as creating innovative new software for the new supercomputer. As part of this program, Cray will ship a small part of the Cray XT3 system to CSCS in April 2005. The parties will work together to port and optimize the CSCS and PSI scientific applications to the Cray XT3 system.
"This is a very important step for Cray Inc., as it will bring a large Cray supercomputer back into the heart of the European HPC community, meeting one of our key corporate goals of regaining leadership across Europe," said Cray President Peter Ungaro. "Cray has developed a strong partnership in our relationship with CSCS and PSI, and we believe that our collaboration will speed the adoption and excitement around Cray supercomputers not only in Europe, but worldwide."
In addition, CSCS will collaborate with leading U.S. supercomputing sites that also operate large-scale Cray XT3 systems, including Sandia National Laboratories -- which co-developed the system's innovative "Red Storm" architecture with Cray -- Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The sites will share information on using the new Cray XT3 system to best advantage.
The Cray XT3 system is Cray's third-generation MPP product that significantly advances the achievements of the Cray T3D™ and Cray T3E™ supercomputers, still widely considered the gold standard for MPP systems. The Cray XT3 supercomputer's Red Storm design -- purpose-built for high performance computing (HPC) applications -- sets new standards for systems based on standard microprocessors. The Cray XT3 system delivers a much higher percentage of peak performance in practice than HPC clusters and other alternatives. The Cray XT3 supercomputer uses Advanced Micro Devices Inc. HyperTransport™ technology and Opteron™ processors connected via a Cray low-latency, high-bandwidth, three-dimensional torus interconnect network.
The Horizon system at CSCS will include 2.2 terabytes of memory, a 28-terabyte global high-performance parallel file system based on Lustre, and peak bisection bandwidth of 14.1 terabytes per second.
About CSCS
CSCS (Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico) is the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, providing, developing and promoting technical and scientific services for the Swiss research community in the fields of high-performance and high-throughput computing. An autonomous unit of ETH Zurich, CSCS was created in 1991 to provide leadership-class computing for high-end science nationwide and to support breakthrough science, academic partnerships and world-class connectivity.
About the Paul Scherrer Institute
The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), located in Villigen, Switzerland, is a multi-disciplinary research centre for natural sciences and technology. PSI collaborates with national and international universities, other research institutions, and industry in the areas of solid-state research and material sciences, particle physics and astrophysics, life sciences, energy research and environmental research.
About Cray Inc.
As the global leader in HPC, Cray provides innovative supercomputing systems that enable scientists and engineers in government, industry and academia to meet both existing and future computational challenges. Building on years of experience in designing, developing, marketing and servicing the world's most advanced supercomputers, Cray offers a comprehensive portfolio of HPC systems that deliver unrivaled sustained performance on a wide range of applications. Go to www.cray.com for more information.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain factors that could cause Cray's execution plans to differ materially from those anticipated by the statements above. These include the technical challenges of developing high performance computing systems including stable system software, government support and timing of supercomputer system purchases, the successful porting of application programs to Cray computer systems, the successful passing of acceptance tests, reliance on third-party suppliers, Cray's ability to keep up with rapid technological change and Cray's ability to compete against larger, more established companies and innovative competitors. For a discussion of these and other risks, see "Factors That Could Affect Future Results" in Cray's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on April 1, 2005.
Cray is a registered trademark, and Cray T3D, Cray T3E and Cray XT3 are trademarks, of Cray Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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