Cray wins $16.4 million arctic supercomputer work

Cray Inc., Seattle, won a $16.4 million contract to provide a supercomputer system and support to the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, the company announced Dec. 24.

Under terms of the contract, Cray will install its newly released X1 supercomputer system in stages through 2003. The company will also provide maintenance for other Cray supercomputers already owned by the center.

"The Cray X1 system's extremely powerful capability will be crucial for accelerating the work of existing users whose important applications absorb as much speed and memory as we can deliver," said Frank Williams, director of the center. The company claims the X1, with 128 processors, can make up to 1.64 trillion calculations per second.

To be installed at the center's facility on the University of Alaska Fairbanks main campus, the new system will be used to study atmospheric and geophysical conditions of the Arctic and high latitudes.

The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center supplies computational services to both the University of Alaska and the Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program, a 1992 initiative to equip the Defense Department laboratories with high performance computing capabilities.