Cray announced it just signed a contract to deliver a Cray CS400 cluster supercomputer to the Laboratory Computing Resource Center (LCRC) at Argonne National Laboratory. The Argonne National Laboratory is a non-profit research laboratory operated by the University of Chicago for the Department of Energy (DOE). The new Cray system will serve as the Center’s flagship cluster, and will be know as “Bebop” to continu with LCRC’s theme of jazz-music inspired computer names.

Argonne National Laboratory established the LCRC in 2002 to enable and promote the use of high-performance computing (HPC) across the Laboratory in support of its varied research missions.

This new Cray CS400 system will be available to the entire Argonne user community, and is going to boost its integrated computing and data resources with 1.5 petaflop. These systems will be used in the development of petascale codes that will run on systems such as Theta, a Cray XC40 supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF).

“At its core, the mission of the LCRC is to provide Argonne’s users with supercomputing resources that expand research horizons, provide the training and assistance for more productive research projects, and enable larger and more complex studies,” said Rick Stevens, Associate Laboratory Director for Computing, Environment and Life Sciences. “Supercomputers are important tools for the Laboratory’s efforts in many areas, including energy storage, new materials, nuclear energy, climate change, and efficient transportation.”

“Cray supercomputers continue to power the amazing research conducted by the Argonne user community, and we are honored that the LCRC has selected a Cray CS400 as the next flagship system for this important program,” said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray. “We are proud of our ongoing partnership with Argonne, and with Theta and the upcoming Aurora system, and now Bebop, we look forward to an exciting future with this important customer.”

This new supercomputer for the Laboratory Computing Resource Center of the Argonne National Laborator is expected to be put into production in mid-2017.