Cray/Media: Mardi Larson, 612/683-3538 CWSA: Dave Steer, 617/478-2357 SIX OF YEAR'S TOP INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INNOVATORS USE CRAY RESEARCH SYSTEMS Cray Users Are Largest Contingent In Annual Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program Spanning Finance, Manufacturing and Science Categories EAGAN, Minn., April 18, 1996 -- Six of 1996's top information technology innovations happened on Cray Research systems, Cray Research reported today. Cray announced that the largest contingent of finalists in the annual Computerworld Smithsonian Awards (CWSA) program sponsored by Computerworld and the Smithsonian Institution are Cray users. The global awards program recognizes leading technology innovations that benefit society. "It is exciting to see so many of today's best IT innovations come from organizations using Cray's high-performance systems," said Robert H. Ewald, Cray Research president and chief operating officer. "For every one of our customers recognized in the Computerworld Smithsonian program, there are literally thousands of others doing superb innovative work in a wide range of scientific, industry, and commercial fields." 1996 CWSA Finalists Organizations Using Cray Systems Include: --Alcan International Ltd., Canada, for aluminum sheet- metal stamping simulation applied to the auto industry. (Manufacturing Category) --Churchill Insurance, UK, for its leading-edge use of open client/server database systems supporting its 1,000+ telesales team, the insurance company's only means of selling policies. (Finance Category). --Los Alamos National Laboratory, U.S., for its development of the first dynamically consistent 3-D computer model that provides new insights into one of the Earth's longstanding mysteries -- the generation of the Earth's magnetic field, which Albert Einstein believed to be one of the five most important unsolved physics problems. (Science Category). --California Institute of Technology, U.S., for its lead role in developing basic programming technology and successfully applying this technology to advancing U.S. industrial competitiveness in microelectronics, satellite manufacturing and launch vehicle design. (Science Category). --Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, U.S., for significantly impacting pollution reduction policy through effective environmental simulation. (Science Category). --San Diego Supercomputer Center and the University of Arizona for better understanding the role of "fibrillation" in heart failure. (Science Category). In April, the CWSA announced the winners of the Cray Leadership Award for Breakthrough Computational Science, a separate Cray-sponsored award aimed at recognizing unique and important uses of supercomputers. The 1996 winners are Dr. John McDonald and Don Stredney, both of Ohio State University, for combining virtual reality technology with surgical techniques to revolutionize the field of medical training. This team, using supercomputers at the Ohio Supercomputing Center, developed a virtual reality application to help medical students more effectively learn how to administer epidural analgesia, a common but dangerous procedure requiring delicate and careful maneuvers near the human spinal cord. The CWSA finalists and Cray award winners will be honored at a June 3 awards ceremony in Washington, DC, where 10 best- of-category winners will be selected from the finalists. All 341 nominees' innovations in the 1996 CWSA program will become part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection, accessible to researchers and scholars worldwide, as well as the 1996 CWSA Internet World Wide Web site. Cray Research provides the leading supercomputing tools and services to help solve customers' most challenging problems. ###