Cray (Nasdaq: CRAY) has secured a potential $600M contract from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to build and deliver a supercomputing platform to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California by late 2022.
DOE said Tuesday researchers will use the “El Capitan” exascale computer to study methods for nuclear weapons stockpile maintenance, as well as conduct data-heavy simulations and calculations.
The system is designed to perform at a capacity of more than 1.5 exaFLOPS. Bill Goldstein, lab director at LLNL, said the machine will incorporate the Shasta software to support complex workflows needed for exascale computing.
Rick Perry, secretary of energy, noted he expects the new supercompter to help increase the country’s energy and national security capabilities via modeling, simulation and artificial intelligence.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) is acquiring Cray via an approximately $1.3B cash deal to expand HPE’s high-performance computing technology portfolio.
