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NCI Supercomputer Officially Launched Today

Fujitsu PRIMERGY computational power at Australian National University takes high capability Australian research to the world stage

Fujitsu Australia Limited

Sydney, July 31, 2013

Fujitsu announces Australia’s most powerful computer was officially launched today at the opening of the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) high performance computing centre at the Australian National University (ANU).

The 1.2 Petaflop Fujitsu PRIMERGY cluster, is named after the Japanese god of thunder and rain, Raijin. It is one of the most powerful in the world and now provides high-end computational services to the Australian research community.

With peak performance speeds of 1.2 PetaFlops – 1,200,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second, the new computer has the power of 56,000 computers working in parallel, and the disk storage equivalent of 20,000 computers but working much faster. It can perform the same number of calculations in one hour that every one of the 7 billion humans on Earth, armed with calculators, could perform in 20 years - or 170,000 calculations per second, per person on Earth.

The NCI is supported by a $50 million grant under the Australian Government’s Super Science Initiative. Raijin’s speed is taking the Australia’s research capacity to new levels with Commonwealth agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia to run complex weather and climate modelling, and research in computational chemistry, particle physics, astronomy, material science, microbiology, nanotechnology and photonics.

Raijin is the largest x86 HPC installation of any brand in the southern hemisphere and the largest Fujitsu PRIMERGY deployment worldwide. The innovative design of Raijin, which utilises industry standard hardware, saw it delivered and commissioned as budgeted. Professor Lindsay Botten, Director of the NCI said “Advanced computational methods form an increasingly essential component of high-impact research, in many cases underpinning discoveries that cannot be achieved by other means, as well as the platform with which to sustain innovation at an internationally competitive level. NCI welcomes the opportunity to continue to build a substantive collaborative relationship with Fujitsu, the peak system vendor, with a focus particularly on the optimisation of Australia’s primary modelling suite.”

Mike Foster, Chief Executive Officer of Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand, said: “We are proud to have delivered Australia’s most powerful computer to the NCI and now look forward to seeing Raijin underpin the NCI’s role in facilitating breakthrough research in Australia and internationally.”

Important Statistics

  • Fujitsu PRIMERGY x86 High Performance Computing (HPC) technology is based on commodity hardware, which delivers improved price/performance; access to a greater range of ISV applications; and simplified the migration process from existing x86 applications.
    • Processor cores: 57,472 (Intel Xeon Sandy Bridge, 2.6 GHz)
      Main Memory: 160 TBytes
      Disk Storage: 10 PBytes
      Peak Performance: 1195 TFlops
      Available Resource: 503M core hours per annum
  • Raijin is capable of peak performance speeds of 1.2 PetaFlops – 1,200,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second.
  • The installation of Raijin was undertaken by Fujitsu’s combined supercomputing expertise from Australia and Japan with support from Fujitsu Australia engineering teams and project partners.
  • The NCI is supported by a $50 million grant under the Australian Government’s Super Science Initiative. Its operation is sustained through co-investment by a number of partner organisations including the ANU, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), Geoscience Australia and other research-intensive universities supported by the Australian Research Council. Researcher access to NCI facilities and services is also supported by the ARC and a number of Australia’s research intensive universities.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 170,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.4 trillion yen (US$47 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013.
For more information, please see: : fujitsu.com

About Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand is a leading service provider of business, information technology and communications solutions. As the third largest ICT Company in the Australian and New Zealand marketplace, we partner with our customers to consult, design, build, operate and support business solutions. From strategic consulting to application and infrastructure solutions and services, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand have earned a reputation as the single supplier of choice for leading corporate and government organisations. Fujitsu Australia Limited and Fujitsu New Zealand Limited are wholly owned subsidiaries of Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702).
For more information, please see: : fujitsu.com.au

Collin Duff-Tytler

Phone: Phone: +61 2 9113 9346
Mobile: Mobile: +61 409 953 349
E-mail: E-mail: collin.duff-tytler@au.fujitsu.com
Company:Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand
Marketing Programs and Communications Manager


All other company or product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Information provided in this press release is accurate at time of publication and is subject to change without advance notice.

Date: 31 July, 2013
City: Sydney
Company: Fujitsu Australia Limited, Fujitsu Australia Limited