Cray announced it has signed a $20 million contract with the Foundation for Space Technology, Applications and Science (FUNCATE), which is responsible for the procurement of high-performance computers in Brazil. This particular contract will provide the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) with a new Cray XT6 system. The system, which will go into production later this year, will perform weather forecasts and climate studies, says seattlepi.com.
The INPE says the 244 teraflop XT6 cluster it is contracting from Cray has 50 times the computing power of the current system it uses to predict weather. According to The Register, the system will allow INPE to predict extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rain, drought, frost and heat with reliability.
