SEATTLE, Wash., Nov. 14 -- Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (Nasdaq: CRAY) today announced it has finalized a contract with the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) to provide the supercomputer for the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. The supercomputer will be comprised of a Cray XE6 system and a future upgrade of the recently-announced Cray XK6 supercomputer with GPU computing capability incorporated into a single, powerful hybrid supercomputer. Once fully deployed, the Blue Waters system is expected to have a sustained performance of more than one petaflops on demanding scientific applications.

Consisting of products and services, the multi-phase, multi-year contract is valued at $188 million. The Cray supercomputer will be installed in multiple phases over the first three quarters of 2012 at the University of Illinois' National Petascale Computing Facility. The integrated XE6 and XK6 supercomputer will feature new 16-core AMD (NYSE: AMD) Opteron 6200 Series processors (formerly code-named "Interlagos"),  a next-generation GPU from NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), called "Kepler," and a new integrated storage solution from Cray. Acceptance of the complete system is anticipated to occur in the fourth quarter of 2012.

"We're very excited to have been selected by the NCSA, NSF and the University of Illinois to deliver the Blue Waters system, which represents one of the largest contracts in our company's history," said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray. "Together with the recently announced $97 million contract to upgrade the 'Jaguar' system at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, these contracts demonstrate Cray's leadership position in supercomputing. With a strong core business and future growth opportunities around our new initiatives, we are extremely pleased to be able to provide our outlook for 2012 of strong revenue growth and profitability."

Outlook

For 2011, our outlook remains the same as stated on November 1, 2011 in our earnings release reporting third quarter 2011 financial results.

For 2012, revenue is anticipated to be in the range of $340-$360 million, which includes the Blue Waters system at NCSA that is expected to contribute roughly 40 percent of the annual revenue. Revenue is expected to be heavily weighted to the fourth quarter. Gross margins for the year are anticipated to be in the 35 percent range. While it is still early in the annual budgeting cycle, total operating expenses for 2012 are anticipated to be in range of $110-$115 million, driven primarily by higher investments in our growth initiatives. Based on this outlook, we expect to be profitable for 2012.

Actual results for any future period are subject to large fluctuations given the nature of Cray's business.

About Cray Inc.

As a global leader in supercomputing, Cray provides highly advanced supercomputers and world-class services and support to government, industry and academia. Cray technology is designed to enable scientists and engineers to achieve remarkable breakthroughs by accelerating performance, improving efficiency and extending the capabilities of their most demanding applications. Cray's Adaptive Supercomputing vision is focused on delivering innovative next-generation products that integrate diverse processing technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to surpass today's limitations and meeting the market's continued demand for realized performance. Go to www.cray.com for more information.

-----

Source: Cray