Exeter, 12 April 2005 --- The Met Office has begun to produce
weather forecasts from its newest and fastest supercomputer at its
Exeter headquarters. The NEC SX-8 system doubles the computing
power of each of the two existing 120-processor NEC SX-6 systems,
operational since April 2003. NEC was named as the supplier of Met
Office supercomputers in June 2002, following an EU tender worth
£27.5 million. The 128-processor NEC SX-8 will allow improvements
to be made to weather forecasts and climate predictions. This will
be achieved by inputting ever greater quantities of data into
higher resolution models with better representations of physical
processes. Analysing uncertainty will also enable more confidence
in forecasts, giving more useful advice to decision makers. The aim
is to predict severe weather as early as possible and estimate the
level of impact on affected areas.
The Met Office took delivery of the NEC supercomputer - which has a
theoretical peak power of an industry-leading 16 billion
calculations per second per processor - in January. Stringent
acceptance tests involved running the machine at near-capacity for
28 days in a 56 day period. The NEC SX-8 achieved this in the first
28 days of the trial; the first time this has happened with a Met
Office supercomputer. After passing the tests, the Met Office will
take the system into full operational mode from midday 12 April
2005.
The new supercomputer which, based on the speed of data movement,
has the performance of around 8000 home PCs, will run the most
demanding atmospheric models producing weather forecasts out to
five days ahead, together with key integrations of the climate
model. This will support the growing number of climate simulation
and ocean-atmosphere models aimed at driving climate research in
the UK and developing improvements to the operational forecast
models. It will also contribute to international collaborations on
climate research - notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change - and on weather forecasting.
"The new system is geared to provide what our customers want: more
accuracy, more detail and a quantification of risk, with a
particular emphasis on high impact weather," said Steve Noyes,
Chief Technology Officer at the Met Office. "Being as accurate with
our predictions as possible is very important to us and our
customers. For this reason, the Met Office has acquired a computer
that is among the most powerful available. This highlights our
commitment to improving our services still further." "From a
computer standpoint weather prediction and climate research push
the boundaries of supercomputing," said Makoto Tsukakoshi, Managing
Director, NEC High Performance Computing Europe. "The new system
uses our latest technology in microprocessor design combined with
the fastest network and memory bandwidth achievable today. We are
committed to a long term SX Series processor development and
reliable leading edge system integration. The computer was
delivered on time three years after we signed the contract and only
five months after we announced availability of the SX-8."
The Met Office
The Met Office is the national meteorological service for the UK.
It is a world leader in the supply of data, advice and services to
help mitigate the effects of weather, climate and other
environmental factors.
NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is one of the
world's leading providers of Internet, broadband network and
enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized
needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as one of
the world's top patent-producing companies, NEC delivers tailored
solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron
devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks,
and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC
Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000
people worldwide and had net sales of 4,906 billion yen (approx.
$47 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 2004. For additional
information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com.
NEC has distributed high performance computing systems in Europe
since 1987 and provides wide-ranging support services and system
integration. NEC's product portfolio includes SX series
supercomputers, TX series high performance servers and NEC's
trusted Linux clusters, which are mainly used for scientific and
technical computing tasks in industry and research. NEC High
Performance Computing Europe (HPCE) was founded in February 2003,
formerly known as NEC European Supercomputer Systems, established
in 1989. The European headquarter is in Düsseldorf, with branch
offices located in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Lugano and Milan.
NEC's competence center for Linux technology and third party
application tuning and support has its offices in Stuttgart.
For additional information, please visit: http://www.hpce.nec.com/
For further information:
Wayne Elliott
Senior Press Officer
Met Office
Fitzroy Road
Exeter EX1 3PB
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1392 886655
Email: pressoffice@metoffice.gov.uk
Dr. Jörg Stadler
NEC High Performance Computing Europe GmbH
Prinzenallee 11
40549 Düsseldorf
Germany
Tel: +49 (0)7117 80 55 28
Fax: +49 (0)7117 80 55 25
Mobile: +49 (0)171 8902382
Email: jstadler@hpce.nec.com