Plans call for Cray to deliver a 400PFlop system in 2014

Nov 30, 2011 10:38 GMT  ·  By

Supercomputing expert, Cray just announced that the company has been selected to provide a new system for the Kyoto University in Japan that will deliver 300-teraflops of performance in 2012 with plans to upgrade to a 400-teraflops next-generation Cray supercomputer in 2014.

The initial system that will be installed at the Kyoto University is based on the Cray XE6 design which pairs AMD’s recently released Opteron 6200-series CPUs packing up to 16 computing cores with Cray's Gemini system interconnect.

Up to 8 AMD Opteron processors can be installed in a single blade, for a grand total of 2,304 cores per cabinet, and these are seconded by as much as 32GB of DDR3 memory per CPU.

The number of cabinets that the supercomputer will be comprised of was not disclosed.

Information about the 400-petaflop system that should go live in 2014 is also scarce, but Cray did reveal that this will feature a next-gen Gemini interconnect and support for future Intel Xeon processors.

"Kyoto University is highly regarded by the Japanese academic community for its supercomputing leadership, and we are honored that we have been selected to provide a Cray XE6 supercomputer to what is one of the country's prestigious supercomputing centers," said Mamoru Nakano, president of Cray Japan. "This is significant for our company on several fronts.

“Cray is the first non-Japanese supercomputer vendor chosen to be a prime contractor and supplier to one of Japan's seven major national universities, and Kyoto University will give Cray its first order for a Cascade system in Asia.

“This is an exciting moment for us, and we are pleased to be working with such a highly respected customer."

The new Cray system at Kyoto University will be operated by researchers and engineers at the Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies (ACCMS) who conducts research and development related to the advanced use of information technology infrastructure and information media.