CEA installs 5 Tflop/s machine next year - by then biggest supercomputer in Europe

Paris 23 Feb 00 The "Direction des applications militaires (DAM)" from the French atomic agency CEA will install next year a 5 Tflop/s peak Compaq/QSW machine with over 2500 processors. To date this is the largest machine planned to be installed in Europe. The new supercomputer, that will be used for numerical simulations of nuclear arms, will be expanded into the 100 Tflop/s performance range in 2009.

The machine will be installed at the CEA/DAM-Ile-de-France centre in Bruyères-le-Châtel. The machine will be used for the simulation of nucelar arms, and is one of the three elements of the French nuclear policy after it stopped life testing. The other two are the Megajoule laser and a X-ray machine Airix.

The machine will be enlarged in three phases. The first phase will be the initial installation of the 5 Tflop/s machine that will be fully operational by the end of next year. In phase 2, a 30-50 Tflop/s machine will be installed. By 2009, in phase three, a system will be installed in the 100 Tflop/s range.

Apart from using it for its main simulation application purpose, CEA will also make the supercomputer available to a wider scientific audiance.

To achieve the performance, Compaq will cluster several of its large Alpha Server SC supercomputers , using fast switch technology from Italian/UK company Quadrics Supercomputers World (QSW). Compaq will make several cluster tools, such as single system image and cluster & parallel file system tools available.

The CEA web site can be found at http://www.cea.fr .

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