NEWS BRIEFS

New York, N.Y. — Building on its success in one of the most technologically advanced markets, NEC Corporation announced it has received two new orders for its flagship SX-5 supercomputers from universities in Japan and installed a system at the Australian Center for Advanced Computing and Communications. The recent orders show the demand for vector supercomputers for tackling ever-complex computational problems is steadily increasing. The SX-5 supercomputer achieves a maximum processing speed of 4 teraFLOPS (floating point per seconds) in a maximum MultiNode configuration.

NEC received an order for a 1.28 teraFLOPS scalable parallel vector (PVP) SX-5 Series MultiNode supercomputer from Osaka University. The system, which employs 128 processors, will be one of the largest systems to be installed in Japan. Osaka University will use the system in its Cybermedia Center, which provides the core of the educational and research environment needed for leading-edge data processing technology. The system is expected to begin operation in January 2001.

Kyoto University placed an order for a newly enhanced SX-5 Series PVP supercomputer that provides 40 gigaFLOPS peak performance using only four processors. The Yukawa Institute of Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University will use the system to develop more accurate computer models of phenomenon ranging from the microstructures of elementary particles to large-scale structures such as cosmos. The operation of the new system is slated for January 2001.

NEC also installed a SX-5 machine capable of 16 billion calculations per second at the Australian Center for Advanced Computing and Communications, which just opened in Sydney. The NEC supercomputer provides core technology for the center. It is accessed by researchers, industry, State Government departments and universities throughout New South Wales via a high-speed communications link.

Since the introduction of SX-5 Series in January of 1999, NEC has received total of 67 orders worldwide. More than half of the orders come from the Americas, Europe and Oceania. NEC supplies scalable supercomputers that meet technical requirements for a number of leading industrial and research organizations in such areas as product design, financial risk analysis, engineering simulations, climate modeling and weather forecasting.

NEC Corporation is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its customers in the key computer, network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices. NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs more than 150,000 people worldwide and saw net sales of 4,991 billion Yen (approx. $48 billion) in fiscal year 1999-2000. For further information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec-global.com

The SX Series supercomputers are represented in North America through HNSX Supercomputers Inc, Littleton, Massachusetts, in Europe through NEC’s European Supercomputer Systems operation headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, in Australia by NEC Australia’s High Performance Computer Group in Melbourne, and in Brazil by NEC do Brazil’s SX Office at Sao Paulo. For information and contacts for the SX-5 Series Parallel Vector Supercomputer visit http://www.hstc.necsyl.com .

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