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Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Is Home to World's Most Powerful SGI Origin Supercomputer

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SGI today announced the successful installation of the world's largest and most powerful SGI(R) Origin(R) 3000 series supercomputer at the Aeronautical Systems Center Major Shared Resource Center (ASC MSRC) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. To celebrate the complete installation of the SGI Origin 3000 series supercomputer in Q4 of FY2003, a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony was held October 6 at Wright-Patterson and was attended by several base dignitaries and local politicians.

The ASC MSRC SGI Origin 3000 supercomputer embodies a powerful computing environment of 2048 processors, and also integrates products from the SGI(R) InfiniteStorage family of storage solutions including, 2 TeraBytes (TB) of memory and 40 TB of disk storage that provide improved data management capabilities and capacity. The SGI(R) Origin(R) supercomputer more than doubles the available computing capacity of the ASC MSRC in both raw computing capability and hours available to the researchers.

"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers. SGI systems deliver to technical, scientific and engineering professionals the benefits of deeper insights," said Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO of SGI. "This can only come from bringing the highest performance computation and data handling into a unified system. We are honored that the Aeronautical System Center is using SGI solutions to accelerate engineering and design, because SGI understands the demands of leading-edge science and the breakthrough thinking that is needed to succeed."

What makes this SGI(R) system so significant to scientists, engineers, or researchers is the way in which it can be configured or used. Each processor in the Origin 3000 is a top-of-the-line 700MHz R16000(TM) MIPS(R) chip with a full GigaByte (GB) of memory. SGI Origin also provides a distributed shared memory environment with four nodes of 512 processors per node. Each of the four nodes features one large shared memory that is accessible by every processor in the node. This means all 512 high-speed parallel processors have access to the same 512 GB of memory. Ultimately, this means a researcher can now solve problems an order of magnitude larger than ever before. For example, an aerospace engineer can now study how a wing contributes to the performance of the entire aircraft rather than just looking at part of the wing.

A propulsion engineer can study the complex behavior of combustion moving through the entire jet engine to make it more efficient and powerful. A chemist can define new ways to build metals and composites that are stronger and last longer.

No other system in the world puts this much computational power into a single flexible system that is also simple to use and maintain. When compared to typical clustered systems which are complicated to program, the simplicity of having many processors sharing memory means that the researcher will spend less time writing software, and more time solving meaningful problems. The simple-to-use SGI(R) NUMAflex(TM) architecture carries over to system maintenance as well. The system will be more available to users because it can be reconfigured in minutes, instead of days as is typical with clusters.

SGI Origin 3000 series supercomputer demonstrates a breakthrough in delivering both capacity with extraordinary system density and capability. These attributes are specifically targeted to meet needs in the government and defense, sciences, manufacturing, energy and media industries. With revolutionary advances in computer density, each processor in the Origin system consumes less than one-tenth of the electrical power of a common PC, which reduces the heat generated and allows the system to be packaged with as many as 128 processors in a single rack. In this instance, this represents significant cost savings to the government in terms of power and cooling, and total occupied floor space.

SGI continues a long tradition of high performance (HPC) at the ASC MSRC, starting with the first SGI(R) Power Challenge(TM) in 1996 and continuing with the SGI(R) Origin(R) 2000 in 1997, SGI supercomputers have played a leading role at the ASC MSRC. The contributions to the research activities of the Science and Technology (S&T) community are well known.

SGI: The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics Inc., is the world's leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of "Top 100 Companies to Work For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at http://www.sgi.com/.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Origin, Challenge and the SGI logo are registered trademarks and NUMAflex, Power Challenge and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries worldwide. MIPS is a registered trademark and R16000 is a trademark of MIPS Technologies, Inc., used under license by Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010510/SFTH025LOGO )

Media Contact:

Marla Robinson

256-864-3426

marlar@sgi.com

SGI PR Hotline:

650-933-7777

Investor Relations:

650-933-6102

SGI PR Fax:

650-932-0737