The new hpcLine follows a long tradition at Paderborn of acquiring new innovative parallel machines. For instance when it was formed in 1991 it acquired a transputer based Parsytec system. In 1999 it had the first hpcLine system ever built: a 96 node system. The old transputer system can now be found next door: in the Heinz Nixdorf Computer museum. Whether the new system will also make it to the museum in ten year's time remains to be seen, but probably not. The new system is no doubt technologically advanced, but from the outside it looks like any other large rack based system. The inside of the new hpcLine brings together many components in a special designed customized architecture.

The system has many components, all essential and delivered by different companies. Intel for instance delivered the computational processors. The system integration was done by ICT AG. The Infiniband communication technology was produced by Silverstorm Technology.

For the special processor cooling and the racks, Atotech GmbH and Rittal GmbH took care. UNITY AG delivered the projection technology and Advanced Realtime Tracking GmbH the 3d-Tracking-System.

On the software side, Scali took care of the MPI software and the Cluster Management software, while Mercury Computer Systems delivered the AMIRA visulisation software.