Cray has announced the launch of its new production hybrid supercomputing system – the Cray XK6 supercomputer – at the 2011 Cray User Group (CUG) meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. The new supercomputer will combine Cray’s Gemini interconnect, AMD Opteron 6200 Series processors (code-named ‘Interlagos’) and Nvidia Tesla 20-Series GPUs to create a tightly-integrated system upgradeable to more than 50 Pflops of compute power.
The Cray XK6 system offers a unified x86/GPU programming environment that includes tested and powerful tools, libraries, compilers and third-party software. When combined with the Cray Linux Environment, the result is a fully-integrated supercomputer that blends scalable hardware, software and a network. By combining AMD Opteron processors with Nvidia GPUs, the compute node in the XK6 system gives users the option to run applications with either scalar or accelerator components. The XK6 compute blades can also be blended with XE6 compute blades into a single, multi-purpose supercomputing system. Upgradeable from the company’s XT4, XT5, XT6 or XE6 systems, the Cray XK6 system is expected to be available in the second half of 2011. It can be configured in a single cabinet with tens of compute nodes, to a multi-cabinet system with tens of thousands of compute nodes.
The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Manno, Switzerland is Cray’s first customer for the XK6 system. CSCS, which develops and promotes technical and scientific services for the Swiss research community in the field of HPC, signed a contract with Cray to upgrade its XE6m system, nicknamed ‘Piz Palu,’ to a multi-cabinet XK6 supercomputer.
