It was a good day for Cray which won a $48 million contract from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) for a 128-rack CS500 cluster supercomputer. The new system, equipped with Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel Xeon Phi processors, will be the largest supercomputer in South Korea and will provide supercomputing services for universities, research institutes, and industries.
The see-saw sale cycles for supercomputer vendors is always challenging and Cray had hit a couple of speed bumps caused by market slowness and other issues. The new system is expected to be put into production in 2018.
“Our supercomputing division is focused on maximizing research performance while significantly reducing research duration and costs by building a top-notch supercomputing infrastructure,” said Pillwoo Lee, General Director, KISTI. “Cray’s proficiency in designing large and complex high-performance computing systems ensures our researchers can now apply highly-advanced HPC cluster technologies towards resolving scientific problems using the power of Cray supercomputers.”
Since 1962, KISTI has served as a national science and technology information center and has provided information that researchers need to enhance South Korea’s national competitiveness as a specialized science and technology research institute supported by the government.
The Cray CS500 systems provide flexible node configurations featuring the latest processor and interconnect technologies giving customers the ability to tailor a system to specific needs — from an all-purpose high-performance computing cluster to an accelerated system configured for shared memory, large memory, or accelerator-based tasks. The contract includes the product and services.
“Leading global supercomputing centers like KISTI are pushing the boundaries of science and technology for the benefit of everyone,” said Trish Damkroger, Vice President of Technical Computing at Intel. “The leading Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Intel Xeon Phi processors and high-bandwidth Intel Omni-Path Architecture, combined with the expertise and innovation of Cray supercomputers, unleash researchers to achieve groundbreaking discoveries that address society’s most complex challenges and yield answers faster than has ever been possible before.”
Link to release: http://investors.cray.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=98390&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2302209