Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today announced that Helmut Schmidt University (HSU), Hamburg, Germany, is the first European organization to place an order for a Cray XD1(TM) supercomputer system. Financial terms were not disclosed. The Cray XD1 system is scheduled to be installed in the fourth quarter at the University of the Federal Armed Forces within HSU, where it will be used primarily to support advanced education and training. "We evaluated many proposals from leading IT companies and decided on Cray because of the Cray XD1 system's excellent price-to-performance ratio," said Professor Hendrik Rothe, chair of the university's Laboratory For Measurement and Information Technology." In October 2004, we will start a new postgraduate-level curriculum on computational engineering and will use the Cray XD1 mainly for teaching parallel computing techniques for fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, optimization and automatic control. This high performance computer will be of great benefit to our students, since hands-on learning is always the best method to understand sophisticated physical, mathematical and technical problems." "The Helmut Schmidt University's selection of the Cray XD1 system is a sign of the demand for high-bandwidth supercomputing performance," said John Seminerio, president and CEO of Cray Canada. "HPC centers like Helmut Schmidt University are turning to Cray, where they can acquire a powerful, easier-to-manage Linux system at attractive prices." The Cray XD1 system combines AMD's Opteron(TM) processors and HyperTransport(TM) technology with an advanced Cray interconnect to provide industry leading performance and value. Designed for superior sustained application performance, the Cray XD1 system uses the direct connected processor architecture to directly link processors to each other and memory, eliminating interconnect bottlenecks and providing 30 times greater bandwidth and 30 times lower latency than typical cluster systems available today. HPC users can also take advantage of the Cray XD1 system's sophisticated management, self-monitoring and self-healing features to simplify system administration and ensure high availability. Other Cray XD1 innovations include applications acceleration capability based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) linked directly to processors over the Cray XD1 interconnect. The Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany, began offering classes in 1973 and today provides a broad post-secondary academic curriculum. The University of the Federal Armed Forces is part of the Helmut Schmidt University. Cray's mission is to be the premier provider of high performance computing for its customers' most challenging scientific and engineering problems. Go to www.cray.com for more information about the company.