Silicon Graphics will introduce a new supercomputer Tuesday that it says offers the fastest performance in the world, both in raw calculating and graphic processing power.
SGI, a maker of high-performance computer workstations and Cray supercomputers, has scheduled a 1 p.m. PST conference call with the media to discuss what it describes as a "new supercomputer breakthrough." Joining Silicon Graphics chief Richard Belluzzo will be Ernest Moniz, an undersecretary in the US Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy is a major buyer of supercomputers, the world's most powerful computers measured in terms of raw capacity to attack single, infinitely complex problems.
The company declined to provide further details ahead of the announcement.
Bragging rights to the "world's fastest" title has long fueled the marketing battleground among supercomputer makers, who use performance advantage to troll for contracts among the small coterie of government, academic research, and commercial customers who buy such machines.
The race for technical superiority has heated up in recent months as IBM, NEC, and now Silicon Graphics each has laid claim to the title.
In June, Japan's NEC said its SX-5 series were the world's fastest supercomputers available for production use, with speeds of up to four teraflops, or trillion calculations per second.
Just two weeks ago, IBM delivered to the Department of Energy what was billed then as the world's fastest numbers cruncher, capable of 3.9 trillion calculations per second. The company has a contract with the government to produce a supercomputer that can make 10 trillion calculations a second.
Silicon Graphics' announcement takes place as the annual Supercomputing '98 industry trade show is held in Orlando, Florida, this week.
Copyright© 1998 Reuters Limited.
