Mardi Schmieder, 612/683-3538

Laura Merriam, 612/683-7395



THE FRENCH NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

ORDERS CRAY RESEARCH SUPERCOMPUTER



System Will Be Most Powerful Supercomputer In France



EAGAN, Minn., June 3, 1993 -- The CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) Paris,

France, has ordered a CRAY C98 supercomputer system, a new eight-processor system unveiled

earlier this year by Cray Research, the company announced today.  The system is scheduled to be

delivered in the third quarter of this year.   Terms were not disclosed. 



CNRS's new system is the eight-processor model in the expanded CRAY C90 series, which now

includes systems with one to 16 processors based on Cray Research's industry-leading CRAY

C90 technology, Cray Research officials said.   



The French equivalent of the U.S. National Science Foundation, CNRS oversees all academic

research in the country.  CNRS will use the CRAY C98 system for a variety of scientific projects

including climate modeling, physics, materials science and chemistry research.   The new

system will be the most powerful supercomputer in France.  With 512 million words (a Cray

word equals 8 bytes) of memory, the system will also have the largest central memory of any

supercomputer system in the country. 



"The installation of the C98 is the most important part of a major CNRS project aimed at an

overall reorganization of our supercomputer centers," said Prof. Victor Alessandrini, director

of the CNRS reorganization project.  "This machine, together with the new National High Speed

Network, RENATER, will boost by a factor of 10 the present vector supercomputing facilities

available to the French scientific community.  This will considerably help to enhance research

activities related to intensive numerical simulations."



"We're thrilled to provide CNRS with our latest C90 supercomputing technology," said Robert

Levy, president of European sales and marketing for Cray Research.  "CNRS is one of a growing

number of national supercomputer centers worldwide that are installing the latest C90

technology in order to make the most powerful supercomputer available to its researchers.   

This acquisition of a CRAY C98 system affirms our role as the leading supplier of high-

performance computing for advanced scientific research."



Including its entry-level supercomputing system, Cray Research has more than 450 systems

installed worldwide.  Of these, more than 80 are installed at academic institutions worldwide

and 40 are installed in France.



Cray Research creates the most powerful, highest-quality computational tools for solving the

world's most challenging scientific and industrial problems. 



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