The Centre for Modelling & Simulation (CFMS), a specialist in design capability, has awarded the contract for the refresh of its high-performance computing infrastructure to Cray Inc.
CFMS has selected the Cray CS400 cluster supercomputer, which uses the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600v v4 product family. The selection of Cray by CFMS marks the first-ever Cray system installed in the city of Bristol, since opening its EMEA headquarters in June 2015.
The new solution includes NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU Accelerators, which will support demanding computational tasks. Cray says the new system is five times more powerful than the current facility and will provide CFMS customers with faster response times and enhanced performance levels.
Established in 2007, CFMS, an independent and not-for-profit organisation was founded out of a consortium, led by Airbus, including BAE, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, MBDA, Rolls-Royce and Williams. CFMS offers access to a collaborative facility and advanced simulation expertise, technologies and tools that enable companies to incorporate these in their design processes.
‘With modelling and simulation at the core of product development, providing a technology platform that enables rapid innovation and supports the acceleration of engineering design capability is central to our vision,’ said Sam Paice, chief operating officer. ‘It was paramount to select a technology partner at the forefront of high performance computing, and with whom we can develop a collaborative partnership beyond the technology, and support our strategic vision.’
‘Supercomputing plays a vital role in the manufacturing process, and we are honoured that the Centre for Modelling & Simulation selected a Cray CS400 system to provide the computational resources for its user community,’ said Dominik Ulmer, Cray’s vice president of operations for EMEA. ‘This contract has added significance for Cray as Bristol is the home of our EMEA headquarters, and we look forward to working with such a strong organisation that we also share this great city with.’
Meanwhile, Cray has also won two further contracts in recent days. The company announced it has been awarded new contracts for its Cray XC40 supercomputer, two Cray CS400 cluster supercomputers, a Cray Urika-GX agile analytics platform, and its DataWarp applications I/O accelerator to customers in Japan and the USA.
Fred Kohout, chief marketing officer at Cray, said: ‘The demand for Cray’s portfolio is strong. As customers continue to look for capabilities and solutions two leverage the rise of data-intensive computing, we are seeing increased traction for Cray’s supercomputing, storage and analytic solutions.’
