Cray said that it has signed a sub-contract with Los Alamos National Security, to provide the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with a NxG supercomputer. The multi-year, multi-phase contract is valued at more than $45m and can be expanded if the NNSA exercises an option for a future upgrade.
The company said that the new system will create a new supercomputing platform named Cielo, for the advanced simulation and computing program at the NNSA.
According to Cray, Cielo platform will support all three of the NNSA national laboratories, which include Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The NNSA will use the new supercomputing system to ensure safety, security and effectiveness of the US’ nuclear stockpile, and to run its modeling and simulation workload.
The Cray supercomputer will be housed at the Strategic Computing Complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2010.
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Cray said that the new supercomputing system, code-named ‘Baker’ will feature a new interconnect chipset known as ‘Gemini’ that builds on its XT system architecture and an enhanced system software for improving performance, productivity and reliability of the system.
Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray, said: The NNSA plays a critical role in protecting the safety and security of our country, and we are quite proud that some of the organisation’s most critical scientific research will be done on a Cray supercomputer. We have had a great partnership with the NNSA including the development of Red Storm – a collaboration that enabled the launch of our first Cray XT3 supercomputer.
