GOVERNMENT

Cray Inc. today announced that a Cray XT3 supercomputer at RIKEN's Advanced Center for Computing and Communication in Japan has pushed far beyond the existing record for computing performance on the widely used Himeno benchmark test. The 1,920-processor Cray XT3 system posted a score of 2.1 teraflops (2.1 trillion floating-point operations per second), almost seven times faster than the previous top benchmark score of 302 gigaflops set by a Fujitsu system also residing at RIKEN. The Himeno benchmark test is recognized across the computing industry and by a number of government procurement agencies as an important measure of processing speed and efficiency. The benchmark evaluates how fast the computer works its way through a series of differential equations, such as those used by researchers to solve complex problems in fluid dynamics, heat analysis, electrical field analysis and other compute-intensive fields. "We congratulate Cray on achieving such an impressive mark on the Himeno performance test," said Ryutaro Himeno, Director of RIKEN's Advanced Center for Computing and Communication. "Since 1917 RIKEN's mission has been to conduct high-level research across the whole spectrum of the sciences and technology -- physics, chemistry, medicine, biology and engineering. Computational applications in these research fields have expanded in recent years, and they require quite high computing performance. The newly scored benchmark test result by our Cray XT3 system is a wonderful achievement that is very relevant to such research." "We at Cray are excited that the Cray XT3 supercomputer has broken the teraflop barrier on the Himeno benchmark test in such a convincing manner," said Cray Japan President Mamoru Nakano. "Although benchmarks like this aren't the only criteria for choosing a high-performance computing system, a well-constructed test algorithm such as the Himeno benchmark gives customers a solid proof point for determining which system can best handle their most compute-intensive applications. This excellent benchmark result reflects the high level of scalable performance that Cray has engineered into our supercomputers, the level of performance that users can expect when solving their real-world scientific and engineering problems." Complete Himeno results for all tested systems are available online at its Web site. (English) its Web site. (Japanese)