NEWS BRIEFS

Seattle, WA — Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (Nasdaq:CRAY) today announced that it received $22.8 million in new orders from government customers. The orders call for installation of Cray T3E(TM) supercomputer technology valued at approximately $21 million in the first quarter of 2001, and Cray SV1(TM) supercomputer technology now through mid-2001. The Cray T3E system holds the current world record for computer problem-solving speed and was named co-winner of the “Supercomputer Product of the Year” award for 2000 along with the Cray SV1 by the readership of Scientific Computing & Instrumentation magazine.

The delayed timing of previously forecasted sales and orders is expected to result in fourth-quarter 2000 total revenues of approximately $33.5-35 million, and to contribute to expected year-end product order backlog of about $28 million.

“As we have stated, the supercomputer business is `lumpy’, and it is not unusual for sales and orders to slip into a subsequent quarter,” said Cray Inc. president and CEO Jim Rottsolk. “These latest orders demonstrate the continued leadership of our products in mission-critical environments. In addition, we still expect to receive a new order for a Cray MTA system soon, as well as other product orders that slipped beyond December. With this growing backlog, we are off to a strong start in 2001.”

On December 29, 2000, the company completed the third and final payment of its $35.7 million promissory note to Silicon Graphics, Inc., for the March 2000 acquisition of the Cray Research business assets. “This is the final step in our acquisition of the Cray Research operations,” Rottsolk added.

The company also announced that it has raised $12.5 million from two institutional investors in the form of promissory notes. The company has agreed to issue shares of common stock to the investors covered by the company’s shelf registration statement and to apply the purchase price for the shares against repayment of the principal and interest on the notes. Through December 2000, the company repaid $4.2 million of the notes by delivering an aggregate of 1,671,094 shares of common stock at an average price of $2.51 per share, which reflects an 8% discount from the daily volume weighted average trading price for the company’s stock. Unless the company prepays the notes, it will repay the remaining $8.3 million of the notes by issuing additional shares of common stock to the investors, using a 9% discount from the average of the daily volume weighted average trading prices over the period from the first week of January through March 2001.

About Cray Inc.

Cray Inc. designs, builds and sells high-performance MPP, vector processor and general-purpose parallel computer systems. The company has leading edge technology, multiple product platforms, nearly 900 employees, a $2 billion installed base of approximately 600 computers worldwide, major manufacturing and service capabilities and extensive global customer relationships. Cray believes its Multithreaded Architecture and Cray T3E and Cray SV2(TM) systems together represent the future of supercomputing. Go to http://www.cray.com for more information on the company.

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