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SGI SUPERCOMPUTER TO STUDY EARTHQUAKE PHENOMENA

The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, has invested $3.25 million (U.S.) in powerful SGI supercomputing technology as part of an initiative to increase Australia's research abilities in earth sciences and earthquake phenomena. The investment is the result of funding from the Queensland State Government to establish crucial supercomputer hardware systems for the Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS), which seeks to address environmental and natural resource issues and to deepen understanding of earthquake mechanisms.

The new SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer, powered by the latest 208 Intel Itanium 2 processors, will provide ACcESS with unparalleled, world-class computational abilities for processing far greater amounts of research data than ever before possible, in much higher resolutions and in record compute time. When installed, it will be one of the most powerful computational machines available in Australia. The recently announced Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision graphics system will provide advanced visualization capabilities.

Designed to advance fundamental geophysical research, ACcESS develops methodologies that increase crucial knowledge of earthquakes and enable forecasting of earth movements. The new center also focuses on geomechanics and geohazards research and on advancing such earth-exploration capabilities as mining efficiencies and mineral exploration through more accurate predictions of resource deposits.

The University of Queensland secured Australian federal government funding for ACcESS as part of the Major National Research Facility competitive grant process, together with such partners as Monash University, the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing, the University of Melbourne, RMIT University, and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Exploration and Mining. Additional funding, required to provide the needed computational infrastructure, was made possible by the Queensland government's Smart State initiative, which supports the implementation of major research infrastructure in the state. SGI has committed significant support to and co- investment in the progression of this vital environmental research project.

ACcESS was established to provide a computational virtual Earth to spur research into such complex phenomena as earthquakes and other geological processes in the Earth's crust. The ACcESS supercomputer facility has grown out the activities of The Queensland University Center for Earthquake Studies, or QUAKES, a longtime user of SGI computational and visualization technologies.

"The ACcESS facility provides a new level of predictive capability of complex earth processes and provides an immense opportunity to achieve scientific breakthroughs and innovations in the earth sciences and related IT areas," said Peter Mora, director of the Earth Systems Science Computational Center and QUAKES group at The University of Queensland. "It places Australia at the forefront of solid earth simulation research and yields an enormous potential for societal and economic benefits.

"For instance, we will be able to study the dynamics of fault systems in the earth's crust in a way never before possible, which could lead to the scientific underpinning needed to forecast earthquakes," he continued. "The simulator also provides a means to derive innovations in mining methodologies that can improve efficiencies, site longevity, safety, prevention of mine activity loss and even prevention of potential mine collapses. SGI's new systems offer us the powerful computational performance and scalability we needed to take our research plans in these areas to the next level."

The new Altix 3000 system is based on the unique SGI NUMAflex scalable architecture, running the Linux operating system and powered by the latest Intel Itanium 2 processors. The system consists of 208 Intel Itanium 2 CPUs with 208GB of main memory. The SGI Altix 3000 family of servers and superclusters has recently established a number of new world records following a range of industry benchmarks.

The installation will enable ACcESS to carry out very large simulations that have demanding computations and require very high bandwidth capabilities. The advanced architecture offered by SGI technology was deemed paramount to the ACcESS facility's ability to carry out closely coupled simulations for its research.

"ACcESS will be focusing on some of the most advanced, compute-intensive environmental research taking place in Australia at the moment. It's exciting to know that Intel Itanium 2 processors are playing an integral role in making that research possible," said David Bolt, general manager of Intel Australia and New Zealand. "ACcESS now joins some of the world's leading research organizations enjoying the record-setting integer, floating-point and bandwidth performance that Itanium processor-based systems bring to high- performance computing."

"Mining and earth resources play a huge part in Australia's GDP. Continuous research and discovery in these areas is vital to the local economy and environment," added Bill Trestrail, managing director, SGI. "The investment that SGI has pledged to The University of Queensland is a sign of our belief in and commitment to the value these scientists and researchers are bringing to Australia. We are proud to be able to say that SGI technology, underpinned by our relationship with Intel, will play such a significant role in speeding up the discovery process."

For further details about SGI's involvement with universities and research labs around the world, visit http://www.sgi.com/go/research.

ABOUT SGI

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc, is the world's leader in high- performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of the 'Top 100 Companies to Work For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and can be found on the web at http://www.sgi.com.