SCIENCE

PHOENIX -- Attendees of SC2003 will have the opportunity to tour the largest-ever array of exhibits by high performance computing industry and research organizations. The sold-out exhibit hall will contain 130 industry and 89 research exhibitors in an area equivalent to nearly four football fields. This year's exhibits eclipse last year's highly successful show and will occupy the largest amount of square footage -- 221,000 square feet -- a record in the history of the conference. SC2003, the annual conference of high performance computing will be held from November 15-21 in the Phoenix Civic Plaza Convention Center with the theme "Igniting Innovation." Since its inception, SC has established a tradition as the place for scientists, engineers, and managers to see the latest in products, services, and innovations in high performance computing, networking and related disciplines, enabling them to return home with the tools they need to prepare their organizations for the future. The exhibits will open during a gala reception from 7-9 p.m. Monday, November 17, and will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 18-19, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, November 20. "The exhibits will be spectacular," said SC2003 Exhibits Chair Dave Cooper of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "We will have a record number of exhibitors that feature state-of-the-art technologies for computing environments from the desktop to the world's largest supercomputers." Backed by the industry's only focused conference program, the exhibit floor gives attendees the opportunity to obtain hands-on experience to back up the wealth of information gathered in the conference sessions. They'll examine the impact of our changing society and growing global marketplace as well as breakthrough technologies for management and support. SC2003 industry exhibitors will demonstrate the future of computing and networks from the desktop to petaflop/s, and include the leading companies in high-performance computing, networking, data management, data storage and software. Exhibitors range from the largest technology companies to small and medium-sized companies in bioinformatics, 3D visualization, high-speed interconnects, switches and routers. The research exhibits, a feature unique to the SC series of conferences, will demonstrate how these state-of-the-art technologies are being used by the world's top research institutions to solve critical problems in science and engineering. More about the SC2003 exhibits can be found at: http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2003/exhibits_overview.html