Designed by Bull, Tera10 will integrate 544 NovaScale 6160 computing nodes, each including eight next generation Itanium processors codenamed Montecito. Montecito will be release next year and will feature dual-core technology. Quadrics, specialized in supercomputing network is to provide QsNetII high performance network to interconnect the NovaScale servers. The global configuration will feature 8704 processors with 27 terabytes of core memory.

Beyond power, Tera10 also requires a huge storage capacity for data produced by the Simulation Programme. Therefore, its configuration also includes 54 NovaScale I/O servers managing one petabyte or one million of billions bytes of disc space with a sustained throughput of 100 GB/s. It also includes two additional NovaScale servers for system management.

Tera10 will operate the Bull HPC software platform that includes the Linux operating system and Lustre, the global and parallel file system. This platform is based on an open source software integrated and optimised by Bull's HPC competence centre in Echirolles, France.

Tera10 will be fully deployed before end of 2005. By 2010, the CEA physicists will need a power of hundreds of teraflops. Bull and its partners are already working together in this perspective.

"Bull is proud to have been selected by CEA to equip its scientific computing complex in BruyËres-le-Ch’tel, the largest computer in Europe and one the most powerful in the world. With NovaScale, our new generation of servers, and related technologies, we are able to meet CEA's Simulation Program computing power requirements", declared Gervais Pellissier, Managing Director of Bull.

Jean Gonnord, Head of the digital and IT simulation project of CEA/DAM stated: "For our Simulation Programme, we have selected Bull's supercomputer for the global performance it provides. Its architecture based on standard components and open software delivers both scalability and power we require for our future development."

"Intel is very honoured that CEA selected the Itanium processor family, and Bull's NovaScale servers, to support this scientific project. In addition to its mission-critical commercial applications, Itanium architecture shows its leading-edge for complex scientific computing", added Abhi Talwalkar, Vice-President and General Manager Enterprise Platforms Group, Intel.

"Quadrics is very pleased that the QsNetII interconnect and software have been selected for the latest CEA supercomputer. We have developed an excellent relationship with Bull, resulting in a product that is unique both in terms of power and functionality", stated Quadrics Chief Executive, Cristoforo Romanelli.