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University of Edinburgh joins Cray's Exascale Research Initiative in Europe

The University of Edinburgh is to join Cray's Exascale Research Initiative with the creation of its Exascale Technology Centre at EPCC, the supercomputing centre at The University of Edinburgh.

Today’s Cray supercomputers can perform more than a Petaflop of calculations per second on real scientific applications. That is a thousand million million calculations per second. An Exaflop is a million million million calculations per second - a thousand times faster than today’s supercomputers. To meet this challenge over the next decade many innovations in supercomputer hardware, software and applications will be needed. 

With an initial team jointly funded by both organisations, the Exascale Technology Centre in Edinburgh will explore new ideas and new technologies to meet the challenge delivering an Exaflop within the next decade.

Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray, said :'I am very excited about our partnership with the University of Edinburgh and the long and outstanding experience of EPCC in the field of HPC. This will accelerate the success of this new research initiative of Cray.'

Welcoming the launch, the Principal of The University of Edinburgh said: 'Through EPCC, The University of Edinburgh has been at the forefront of supercomputing research for the past 20 years. We are very proud that we host the UK’s National HPC Service – a Cray XT5h system – and are looking forward to a fruitful, long-term collaboration with Cray at the forefront of this domain.'

Exascale computing will be vital for European competitiveness in many areas of daily life including the design of new products, medical advances and climate change. By being at the forefront of such developments Cray and The University of Edinburgh are confident they will  reap the benefits of this vital technology.

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