SAN DIEGO, CA -- The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Netherlands Computing Facilities Foundation have selected SGI to supply and service their next-generation national supercomputer, featuring 1,024 MIPS microprocessors slated to deliver one Tflop/s (a trillion operations per second) of peak performance, 10 Tbytes (10,000 gigabytes) of on-line storage, and 100 Tbytes near-line StorageTek storage. The SGI supercomputer, which will be installed in the second half of 2000, will be used by the Dutch academic community in their quest to understand and resolve the most complex scientific, technical and medical issues affecting the world today. Research will range from bone growth under stress to the prediction of climatic change.

SGI was selected to manufacture, install and provide a six-year maintenance contract for the supercomputer after extensive competitive evaluation by the Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF). The supercomputer will be housed at and operated by the Academic Computing Services Amsterdam (SARA) centre in The Netherlands.

"The Netherlands aims to excel in fundamental and applied scientific research. Access to a national supercomputer is crucial for essential parts of science if we are to realize this goal. We have chosen the newest generation of SGI machines for its functionality and applications performance, and because we see a strong commitment at SGI to the development of the required high performance technology and software", according to Reinder van Duinen, chairman of NWO.

E.J. Baerends, from the Free University Amsterdam, commented, "Our investment in SGI supercomputer technology has major implications for Dutch universities. Access to the new supercomputer means that we can carry out more intensive research work and come closer to breaking new ground in terms of scientific and medical discoveries which will have a very real impact on the way we live today."

Today's announcement is one of the first European orders for a new generation of highly scaleable, high performance ccNUMA servers and supercomputers from SGI. Building upon the success of the SGI Origin series, SGI's third generation of ccNUMA servers will feature a modular architecture that means each system can be tailored to exactly match the customer's performance and application requirements. Peak performance of the complete system is anticipated to reach three Tflops per second by the 2003 timeframe. Further details of the new systems will be unveiled later this year.

Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO of SGI said, "SGI's mission is to provide our scientific and technical customers with the highest-performing and best-engineered products available anywhere. By working head-to-head with the Dutch supercomputing authorities, we have been able to come up with a tailored solution that leverages SGI's engineering, service and consulting expertise to the full."

Bishop continued, "SGI has built a strong reputation for meeting the needs of the most demanding customers in the high performance computing sector. In fact, we deliver over 38% of the total installed performance of the world's Top 500 supercomputing sites. But more importantly, we are in the privileged position of being able to participate in the cutting edge work of organizations like NWO and the NCF. We look forward to sharing in the new insights and discoveries that will be made by academics and researchers who utilize the enhanced SARA centre." For more information visit http://www.sgi.com

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