GAMING

ARLINGTON, VA -- The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently selected four contractors for the first phase of the High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program. Each contract is valued at approximately $3 million for the initial 12-month phase, pending final negotiations. The selected contractors and their project names are: •IBM, Austin, Texas - PERCS: Productive, Easy-to-use, Reliable Computing Systems •Cray Inc., Seattle, Wash. - Cascade: Efficiency, Programmability, and Robustness in a High Performance Computer System •Sun Microsystems Inc., Palo Alto, Calif. - Productivity Improvement Systems •SGI, Mountain View, Calif. - Ultraviolet Globally Addressable Memory Architecture The goal of the High Productivity Computing Systems program is to provide a new generation of economically viable, scalable, high productivity computing systems for national security and industrial user communities in the 2007 to 2010 timeframe. The HPCS program will fill a gap in high-end computing that the Department of Defense will experience as it moves from today’s high performance computing technology, which dates from the late 1980s, to the future promise of quantum computing. The program is structured into three phases. Phase I is a 12-month industry-guided concept study to provide critical technology assessment, develop revolutionary HPCS concept solutions, and generate new productivity metrics. Phase II is a 36-month research and development phase that will perform focused research and development and risk reduction engineering activities. Phase III is a 48-month, full-scale development effort. One of the major challenges the program faces is to formulate a comprehensive set of requirements, benchmark strategies, and metrics for tera- and peta-scale computing systems. MITRE Corp., McLean, Va., led the applications analysis and performance assessment team for this activity. For more information visit www.darpa.mil/ipto/research/hpcs/index.html.