SCIENCE

Cray, Intel and Swift Engineering have been collectively recognized in the annual HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards for "Best Use of HPC in Automotive."

Swift is a product development company that designs and builds innovative products from race cars to jet planes. The Company uses the Cray CX1 and Cray CX1000 high performance computing systems, powered by 18 dual-socket Intel Xeon processors 5600 series, to reduce time-to-market with proven aerodynamic solutions and the aid of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

"Cray's powerful CX1 and CX1000 systems allowed Swift to develop our unique Mushroom Buster aerodynamic race car design," said Jan Wesley Refsdal, Swift's president. "A Mushroom Buster equipped race car sweeps up the turbulent wake behind the car, promoting closer and more thrilling racing. Cray and Intel's affordable HPC solution has given a small company like Swift the ability to prove such a revolutionary concept for our Formula Nippon race cars with 640 BHP, reaching speeds of 200 MPH in a safe virtual environment."

Swift upgraded to a true HPC system earlier this year after running CFD on a small cluster since 2003, and has increased its capability 10 to 100 times, depending on the problem. "We aren't just doing the same things faster," said Mark Page, Swift's chief scientist, "we're doing many more things now that we haven't had the ability to do before."

"The acknowledgement from the readers and editors of HPCwire is a real honor, and we are proud of the fact that our first-ever Cray CX1000 customer has received this award," said Barry Bolding, vice president of Cray's products division. "Cray provides a full range of HPC systems to meet the needs of the automotive and aerospace markets, and Swift's development of its innovative Mushroom Buster design is a great example of pushing the boundaries of automotive engineering through the combination of CFD, Intel processors and Cray supercomputers. We launched the Cray CX1000 with Swift and it is an honor to be working with such an innovative company."

"Together with Cray, Intel is proud to enable Swift's engineers to develop innovative and exciting designs," said Rajeeb Hazra, general manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. "By combining the power of Intel Xeon processors 5600 series with Cray's high-performance computing systems, we can help Swift test new concepts more rapidly and safely, bringing increased performance and excitement to motorsports."

The award was presented at the 2010 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC10), in New Orleans, Louisiana. The list of winners was revealed at the HPCwire booth at the event, and on the HPCwire website.

The coveted HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards are determined by online polling of the global HPCwire audience followed by a rigorous selection process involving HPCwire editors and industry luminaries. The awards are an annual feature of the publication and constitute prestigious recognition from the HPC community. They are revealed each year to kick off the SC10 conference, which showcases high performance computing, networking, storage, and data analysis solutions."HPCwire readers are among the most informed in the HPC community and these awards highlight the HPC-related companies that are making the biggest impacts in mind-share within this community," said Tom Tabor, publisher of HPCwire. "The HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards send a strong message to the recipients that those in the global HPC community recognize their work, and consider their efforts meritorious. Our congratulations go out to all the winners."