Sure, IBM’s ten petaflop supercomputer may sound impressive, but Cray can do you five better — the outfit just announced the Cray XK6, an upgradable, hybrid supercomputing system able to greater than 50 petaflops of computational muscle. Powered by Cray’s Gemini interconnect, AMD Opteron 6200 processors, and NVIDIA Tesla 20-Series GPUs, the XK6 system blends x86 and GPU environments with the firm’s own flavor of Linux. The parents at Cray won’t resort to bragging, however — they’re humbly declaring the machine to be the primary “general-purpose supercomputer in keeping with GPU technology,” and never, as they put it, a stunt to put high on any Top 500 lists. Suggestive, aren’t they? Take a look at the unassuming press release after the break.
New System Leverages the newest Technologies From Cray, AMD and NVIDIA
SEATTLE, WA and FAIRBANKS, AK, May 24, 2011 — Global supercomputing leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) today announced the launch of the Company’s new production hybrid supercomputing system — the Cray XK6 supercomputer — on the 2011 Cray User Group (CUG) meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. The highly anticipated new supercomputer will combine Cray’s Gemini interconnect, AMD Opteron(TM) 6200 Series processors (code-named “Interlagos”) and NVIDIA Tesla 20-Series GPUs to create a tightly-integrated supercomputing system upgradeable to greater than 50 petaflops (quadrillions of operations/second) of compute power.
The Cray XK6 system introduces an innovative option to increasing programmer productivity with a unified x86/GPU programming environment that incorporates tested and robust tools, libraries, compilers and third-party software. When combined with the Cray Linux Environment, the result’s a totally integrated Cray supercomputer that blends scalable hardware, software and a network. Cray XK6 customers should be ready to utilize the capabilities of a multi-purpose supercomputer designed for a higher-generation of many-core, high performance computing (HPC) applications.
The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Manno, Switzerland is Cray’s first customer for the hot Cray XK6 system. CSCS, which develops and promotes technical and scientific services for the Swiss research community inside the field of HPC, signed a freelance with Cray to upgrade its Cray XE6m system, nicknamed “Piz Palu,” to a multi-cabinet Cray XK6 supercomputer. CSCS is an extended-standing Cray customer and supports scientists working in diverse fields reminiscent of weather forecasting, climatology, chemistry, physics, material sciences, geology, biology, genetics, experimental medicine, astronomy, mathematics and computer sciences.
Professor Dr. Thomas Schulthess, Director of CSCS, said, “Given the remarkable interest in GPU technology from the Swiss computational science community, it’s essential that CSCS adopt this technology into its high-end production systems soon. However, we’re not in the hunt for another GPU based stunt to put high on any Top500 lists. The Cray XK6 promises to be the 1st general-purpose supercomputer in accordance with GPU technology, and we’re greatly anticipating exploring its performance and productivity on real applications relevant to our scientists.”
an impressive addition to Cray’s line of highly-advanced supercomputers, the Cray XK6 system pairs industry-leading HPC technologies from AMD and NVIDIA to create a real hybrid supercomputer with intra-node flexibility. By combining AMD Opteron processors with NVIDIA GPUs, the compute node within the Cray XK6 system gives users the choice to run applications with either scalar or accelerator components. The Cray XK6 compute blades can be blended with Cray XE6 compute blades right into a single, multi-purpose supercomputing system.
“Every aspect of the Cray XK6 was engineered to satisfy the genuine-world performance demands of researchers and scientists tasked with solving the world’s grand challenges,” said Barry Bolding, vice chairman of Cray’s product division. “Cray has an extended history of working with accelerators in our vector technologies. We’re leveraging this expertise to create a scalable hybrid supercomputer — and the associated first-generation of a unified x86/GPU programming environment — so that it will allow the system to more productively meet the scientific challenges of today and tomorrow. We built the world’s first production petaflops system with the Cray XT5 supercomputer, reinvented high performance networking with the Gemini interconnect, and we’re now redefining accelerator-based supercomputing with the unified GPU and scalar technologies built into the Cray XK6 system.”
Upgradeable from Cray XT4, Cray XT5, Cray XT6 or Cray XE6 systems, the Cray XK6 system is predicted to be available within the second 1/2 2011. It’s configured in one cabinet with tens of compute nodes, to a multi-cabinet system with tens of thousands of compute nodes.
“GPUs are playing an increasingly important role in high performance computing as researchers and scientists look to enhance the CPU performance on certain codes,” said Earl Joseph, IDC program vice chairman for HPC. “Cray is a pace-setter within the high-end of the supercomputing market and has designed, built and installed the various world’s strongest systems. The corporate has decades of expertise in successfully integrating hybrid processor types into large scale systems. This means of hybrid supercomputing is quite valuable, and Cray is in a superb position to use it.”
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