Fujitsu has received an order for a new supercomputer system from Canon Inc.

The PRIMEHPC FX10 configuration handles large-scale, complex analyses, enabling product development with minimal need to make prototypes.

The system aims to contribute to more sophisticated analytical simulations in Canon’s product development processes. The system is expected to begin operations in October 2013.

Canon has been utilising HPC for virtual prototyping and various analytical simulations in its product development activities.

However, as products are becoming increasingly sophisticated while getting progressively smaller, the company began to consider deploying a more sophisticated supercomputer system that would enable it to perform complex, large-scale analytical calculations.

Canon selected the PRIMEHPC FX10 as its new supercomputer system for its combination of high performance, low power consumption, and high reliability.

The new system will be a 96-node configuration of the PRIMEHPC FX10, and have a theoretical peak performance of 20.2 teraflops. In addition, Fujitsu will deliver a high-capacity, high-performance storage environment by using a Fujitsu Storage ETERNUS disk array and FEFS (Fujitsu Exabyte File System) software.

With the new system, Canon will now be able to perform complex, large-scale simulations, which had previously been difficult to perform due to the processing resources required, thereby enabling the achievement of Canon’s goal of "prototype-free" product development.