SCIENCE

The Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Center at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., recently received a new Cray XE6 supercomputer.

With 20,224 AMD processors, the XE6 operates at 194 peak teraflops (194 trillion calculations per second) and is now in production. It brings the computational capacity at ERDC to 437 peak teraflops (437 trillion calculations per second). An SGI Altix ICE 8200 and a Cray XT4 are already operating at the facility.

"This represents a huge boost in our ability to solve the most complex science and engineering problems for the Army and the DoD," said Dr. Reed Mosher, director of the ERDC Information Technology Laboratory, where the Supercomputing Center is located. "These systems form the computational backbone of the support we provide to the defense mission. This new enhancement will enable us to continue to be a leader in providing computational capabilities and expertise for our DoD users worldwide."

"ERDC supercomputers are used to tackle some of the most complex and challenging national security problems, ranging from the potential impact of terrorist attacks to the coastal storm surge of hurricane systems in the Gulf of Mexico," said Defense Supercomputing Resource Center Director Dr. Robert Maier. "This increase in computing capability comes with no net increase in our maintenance budget. We're capitalizing on Moore's Law and industry trends to deliver greater engineering design capability with increased operational efficiency."