US Department of Energy buys Cray supercomputer

NEWS The US Department of Energy has bought the latest Cray supercomputer to research climate change and new energy sources. The Cray SV1 is Silicon Graphics' first scaleable supercomputer; it can support up to 64 simultaneous vector processors. Energy scientists at the US National Energy Research Scientific Computing Centre (NERSC) will use it to investigate global climate change and magnetic fusion energy - the centre's speciality. Magnetic fusion energy is released when gases are confined within a magnetic field, and heated until they fuse together. NERSC hopes it will become a clean and nearly unlimited source of energy for the future. The Cray Research machine will also be used to decipher the human genetic code.