[comp.sys.super] NASA to use world's fastest supercomputer

schreiber@schreiber.asd.sgi.com (Olivier Schreiber) (11/27/90)

>From: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
>Subject: NASA to use world's fastest supercomputer (Forwarded)
>Message-ID: <1990Nov22.043644.12947@news.arc.nasa.gov>
>Date: 22 Nov 90 04:36:44 GMT
>Sender: usenet@news.arc.nasa.gov (USENET Administration)
>Reply-To: yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee)
>Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
>Lines: 63

Sarah Keegan                                    November 14, 1990
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
(Phone:  202/453-2754)


RELEASE:  90-151

NASA TO USE WORLD'S FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER


     NASA researchers will have access to the world's fastest 
supercomputer as a member of the Concurrent Supercomputing 
Consortium, a newly-formed group of the nation's premier research 
organizations.

     Consortium members will be able to access Intel 
Corporation's Touchstone DELTA supercomputer system, slated for 
installation at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 
Pasadena, Calif., next spring.  The DELTA system has a peak speed 
of 32 billion floating point operations per second, making it the 
world's fastest computer.

     The consortium will tackle some of today's most demanding 
computational and scientific challenges, such as global climate 
modeling, space science data analysis and pattern recognition of 
DNA sequences in the human genetic makeup.

     NASA will use the DELTA system as part of the agency's High-
Performance Computing Initiative (HPCI), an ambitious program to 
accelerate the computing research capabilities required to 
maintain U.S. aeronautical and space science leadership in the 
21st century.  For example, DELTA will dramatically improve 
NASA's capability to simulate the performance of integrated 
aerospace vehicle systems throughout their flight regimes and 
mission profiles and will greatly enhance multidisciplinary 
research in global climate change and astrophysics. 

     NASA will begin to use the DELTA system for research soon 
after it becomes available at Caltech.  In addition, NASA 
researchers working on HPCI also will evaluate how much of an 
increase in computational performance DELTA offers over the 
agency's present systems.

     Lee B. Holcomb, Director of the Information Sciences and 
Human Factors Division in NASA's Office of Aeronautics, 
Exploration and Technology (OAET), is the agency's representative 
on the Concurrent Supercomputing Consortium's Policy Board.  The 
board is headed by Caltech astronomer Thomas A. Prince.  Paul 
Messina, also of Caltech, is Executive Director of the 
Consortium.

     Other members of the consortium are Argonne National 
Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.; California Institute of Technology; 
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Center for 
Research in Parallel Computation (lead center, Rice University, 
Houston); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, 
Va.; Intel Corporation's Supercomputer Systems Division, 
Beaverton, Ore.; National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.; 
Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Richland, Wash.; Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.; Los Alamos National 
Laboratory, Los Alamos, N. Mex.; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 
Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. and 
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N. Mex.

--
Olivier Schreiber      schreiber@schreiber.asd.sgi.com        Tel(415)335 7353
                       Technical Marketing                    MS 7L580
Silicon Graphics Inc., 2011 North Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, Ca 94039-7311