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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- SGI (NYSE:SGI) today announced a contract for one of the largest SGI(R) Altix(TM) 3000 superclusters to date, powered by 256 Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors. This latest addition to the SGI(R) line of servers and supercomputers is part of an 18-month extension to a six-year supercomputing service contract awarded in 1998 by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to a consortium comprising prime contractor Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), SGI and the University of Manchester. The consortium runs a service, Computer Services for Academic Research, which provides scientific computational facilities on behalf of several U.K. Research Councils, particularly EPSRC and the Natural Environment Research Council, to over 500 of the leading scientists in the U.K. This latest upgrade extends the capabilities and compute power of the service available to U.K. academia and commerce and opens up new opportunities for scientific development. The Research Councils' investment in high-performance compute technology enables such applications as molecular modeling for the pharmaceuticals industry and climate prediction and monitoring. The university's decision to purchase the Altix 3000 supercluster was based on the system's ability to support complex data manipulation at high speed using the Intel Itanium 2 processor's ultrahigh processing power, the clear price/performance benefits of the solution, and the SGI and Intel product roadmaps, which provide support for the requirements of the science and research sectors over the long term. John O'Reilly, chief executive of EPSRC, commented, "The U.K. Research Councils are committed to maintaining a strong position among the world leaders in computational science and engineering. This initiative adds to our strategic framework for high-end computing, allowing us to enhance this reputation." Since its launch in January of this year, the SGI family of Itanium 2- based Altix 3000 systems has shattered scalability and performance records. "A single system of this size, using powerful Itanium 2 processors within SGI's scalable architecture, takes the facilities at the University of Manchester to a leadership position within the computational community," explained Professor Mark Clark, director of information systems at the University of Manchester. "The scientific research sector is investing in new 64-bit high- performance computing technology and pushing processor performance to new levels," said John Woodget, Intel marketing director, Europe, Middle East and Africa. "Beyond pure data management, scientific research is demanding greater scalability, rapid results to complex, compute-intensive calculations and the ability to run tasks in parallel to improve speed and performance, all at an affordable cost. Our work with the University of Manchester shows how Intel's advanced Itanium 2 processor technology is meeting the demanding HPC requirements of today's research centers." Steve Coggins, senior VP, EMEA at SGI, commented, "This project cements SGI's position as a leader in high-performance computing for the technical marketplace. We are excited to be delivering the most powerful Intel-based shared-memory system in the world to the University of Manchester." The scientific computational service's new Altix 3000 system is a four- node supercluster featuring 64 processors per node. The service's infrastructure already includes a 512-processor SGI(R) Origin(R) 3000 server supported by a storage area network, providing high-performance access to large quantities of data. The consortium approach benefits from the skills of each party. SGI Managed Services provides product-focused services that accelerate productivity and optimize system performance. CSC provides integration and operational management of the multiple systems.