NERSC Signs
Up for Multi-Petaflop "Cascade" Supercomputer
July 03,
2012
The US Department
of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has
ordered a two-petaflop "Cascade" supercomputer, Cray's
next-generation HPC platform. The DOE is shelling out $40 million dollars for
the system, including about 6.5 petabytes of the company's Sonexion storage.
The contract covers both hardware and services, which will extend over multiple
years. Installation is scheduled for sometime in 2013.
The NERSC
acquisition represents Cray's third publicly announced pre-sale of a Cascade
system and the first in the US. The other two deals in the pipeline include a
multi-petaflop machine destined for HLRS, at the University of Stuttgart, and a
400-teraflop one for Kyoto University.
Cascade is
a big step for Cray. Not only does it represent the company's first foray in
Intel-based supercomputing, but it also fills out Cray's Adaptive
Supercomputing vision to a much greater degree than the previous XT and XE
product lines. DARPA, which poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the
design via the agency's High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program,
helped to make Cascade a much bigger deal than just a platform refresh.
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