Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Networking

    IBM, Cray Win DARPA Supercomputer Contracts

    By
    Chris Preimesberger
    -
    November 22, 2006
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      IBM, the worlds largest IT company, and supercomputer builder Cray were notified Nov. 21 that they will be awarded nearly $500 million in contracts by the Pentagons Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build next-generation, multi-petaflop computers.

      Reuters reported that as Wall Street heard the news Crays stock shares rose 31 percent to $13.04 on the Nasdaq while IBM shares were off 24 cents at $92.84 on the New York Stock Exchange.

      A spokesperson from DARPA, the Pentagons technology incubator, said that Cray, of Seattle, would get $250 million and that IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., would receive $244 million.

      Left behind was Sun Microsystems, of Santa Clara, Calif., which had been competing hard for one or more of the lucrative contracts with its next-generation hardware and software. Suns stock was up slightly at $5.61 on Nov. 22.

      Supercomputers are used to process huge amounts of data to simulate weather, analyze DNA and process other research-level tasks. They are used by research institutions, governments, the military and a few large companies.

      DARPA said the contractors would work on Phase III of its HPCS (High Productivity Computing Systems) program, where they are commissioned with completing the designs and technical development of very large supercomputers, the spokesperson said.

      The ultimate goal of the HPCS program is to create a new generation of economically viable high-productivity computing systems that will be available for national security and industrial users to purchase.

      “High productivity computing is a key technology enabler for meeting our national security and economic competitiveness requirements,” said DARPA program manager William Harrod.

      “High-productivity computing contributes substantially to the design and development of advanced vehicles and weapons, intelligence problems, the maintenance of our nuclear stockpile, and is a key enabler for science and discovery in security-related fields.”

      DARPA, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Interior, awarded Sun, IBM and Cray a total of $146 million in July 2003 as part of the second phase of its 10-year-long HPCS program, which has a mission of producing a design for a high-performance system that is easier for programmers to use and scales to quadrillions of calculations per second (peta-scale computing).

      DARPA said at that time that the HPCS program is aimed at filling a gap in high-end computing that it anticipates the Department of Defense will experience as it moves from traditional HPTC technology to the future, which is quantum computing.

      DARPA wants the first computers of this type to be available by 2010.

      IBM and Crays unusual supercomputer expertise

      IBM currently powers the worlds top three fastest, most powerful supercomputers, according to the Linpack Top 500 listing that is updated twice per year.

      The current No. 1 supercomputer, as of June 2006, is the IBM BlueGene/L, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., which has recorded a sustained world-record speed of 280.6 teraFLOPS.

      It delivers “extraordinary computing power for the nations Stockpile Stewardship Program,” a DARPA spokesperson said.

      BlueGene/L is used by scientists at Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories.

      Cray, formed from the March 2000 merger of Tera Computer and Cray Research, has a rich computing history that extends back to 1972, when the legendary Seymour Cray, the “father of supercomputing,” founded Cray Research.

      The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 for $8.8 million. It boasted a then-world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second (160 megaflops) and an 8MB (1 million-word) main memory.

      The Cray-1s architecture reflected its designers penchant for bridging technical hurdles with revolutionary ideas. To increase the speed of this system, the Cray-1 had a unique “C” shape which enabled integrated circuits to be closer together.

      No wire in the system was more than four feet long. To handle the intense heat generated by the computer, Cray developed an innovative refrigeration system using Freon.

      /zimages/2/28571.gifClick here to read about NASAs supercomputer.

      In 1988, Cray Research introduced the Cray Y-MP, the worlds first supercomputer to sustain over 1 gigaflop on many applications. Multiple 333 MFLOPS processors powered the system to a record sustained speed of 2.3 gigaflops.

      A hard blow to Sun

      A Phase III DARPA contract would have been a major win for Sun, which has struggled throughout the current decade as the demand for high-end computers has cooled and new, cheaper technologies have come to the forefront.

      Sun Global Communications Manager of Strategic Campaigns Carolyn Rohrer issued the following statement from the company late on Nov. 22:

      “Sun will not be participating in the Phase III effort of DARPAs High Productivity Computing System (HPCS) project.

      “Sun has already achieved great advantage from research and development stemming from our Phase I and II efforts including: the Fortress language, Proximity and Optical Interconnects, Scaling Solaris, Checkpointing, and High Speed File Systems. Sun will continue to develop these technologies and systems to scale throughout our product line.

      “The companys participation in the high performance computing (HPC) market is strong and growing, as evidenced by last weeks announcements at Supercomputing: Sun powers 10 of the fastest supercomputers in the world and offers a new portfolio of technologies and service package specifically tuned for the HPC market. Innovation remains a core business focus for Sun. We continue to spend $2 billion annually on research and development, resulting in advancements in processors, software, systems and storage that are secure, energy-efficient and based on open standards. The company will continue our important engagements with DARPA mission partners and HPC customers.”

      Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, who stepped down from his CEO position last April to focus on large-scale projects like this, told eWEEK back in June that “Im pushing really hard on this one … We see this as a must-win situation.”

      But in the end, the supercomputing expertise of Cray and the size and broad scope of IBMs products and services won out.

      DARPA Supercomputing Project Timeline

      • 2002: DARPA awards the first four Phase I contracts to build next-generation supercomputer to IBM, Cray, Sun and SGI. Each contract was worth $3 million.
      • 2003: DARPA awards $146 million to IBM, Cray and Sun for Phase II of supercomputer project. SGI is dropped from the program.
      • 2006: DARPA awards approximately $500 million to Cray and IBM for Phase III of the project. Sun is dropped from the program.
      • 2010: Final version of supercomputer expected to go online and serve as model for a new generation of high-performance computing platforms.

      /zimages/2/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, views and analysis on servers, switches and networking protocols for the enterprise and small businesses.

      Avatar
      Chris Preimesberger
      https://www.eweek.com/author/cpreimesberger/
      Chris J. Preimesberger is Editor-in-Chief of eWEEK and responsible for all the publication's coverage. In his 16 years and more than 5,000 articles at eWEEK, he has distinguished himself in reporting and analysis of the business use of new-gen IT in a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, data center systems, storage, edge systems, security and others. In February 2017 and September 2018, Chris was named among the 250 most influential business journalists in the world (https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-250-business-journalists/) by Richtopia, a UK research firm that used analytics to compile the ranking. He has won several national and regional awards for his work, including a 2011 Folio Award for a profile (https://www.eweek.com/cloud/marc-benioff-trend-seer-and-business-socialist/) of Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff--the only time he has entered the competition. Previously, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. He has been a stringer for the Associated Press since 1983 and resides in Silicon Valley.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×