Post-Tera merger (2000–2019)
After the Tera merger, the Tera MTA system was relaunched as the Cray MTA-2. This was not a commercial success and shipped to only two customers. Cray Inc. also unsuccessfully badged the NEC SX-6 supercomputer as the Cray SX-6 and acquired exclusive rights to sell the SX-6 in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
In 2002, Cray Inc. announced its first new model, the Cray X1 combined architecture vector processor / massively parallel supercomputer.[24] Previously known as the SV2, the X1 is the result of the earlier SN2 concept originated during the SGI years. In May 2004, Cray was announced to be one of the partners in the United States Department of Energy's fastest-computer-in-the-world project to build a 50 teraFlops machine for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Cray was sued in 2002 by Isothermal Systems Research for patent infringement. The suit claimed that Cray used ISR's patented technology in the development of the Cray X1.[25] The lawsuit was settled in 2003.[26] As of November 2004, the Cray X1 had a maximum measured performance of 5.9 teraflops, being the 29th fastest supercomputer in the world. Since then the X1 has been superseded by the X1E, with faster dual-core processors.
On October 4, 2004, the company announced the Cray XD1 range of entry-level supercomputers which use dual-core 64-bit Advanced Micro Devices Opteron central processing units running Linux.[27] This system was previously known as the OctigaBay 12K before Cray's acquisition of that company. The XD1 provided one Xilinx Virtex II Pro field-programmable gate array (FPGA) with each node of four Opteron processors. The FPGAs could be configured to embody various digital hardware designs and could augment the processing or input/output capabilities of the Opteron processors. Furthermore, each FPGA contains a pair of PowerPC 405 processors which can add to the already considerable power of a single node. The Cray XD1, although moderately successful, was eventually discontinued.
In 2004, Cray completed the Red Storm system for Sandia National Laboratories. Red Storm was to become the jumping-off point for a string of successful products that eventually revitalized Cray in supercomputing. Red Storm had processors clustered in 96 unit cabinets, a theoretical maximum of 300 cabinets in a machine, and a design speed of 41.5 teraflops. Red Storm also included an innovative new design for network interconnects, which was dubbed SeaStar and destined to be the centerpiece of succeeding innovations by Cray. The Cray XT3 massively parallel supercomputer became a commercialized version of Red Storm, similar in many respects to the earlier T3E architecture, but, like the XD1, using AMD Opteron processors.
On August 8, 2005, Peter Ungaro was appointed CEO. Ungaro had joined Cray in August 2003 as Vice President of Sales and Marketing and had been made Cray's president in March 2005.[28]
Introduced in 2006, the Cray XT4 added support for DDR2 memory, newer dual-core and future quad-core Opteron processors and utilized a second generation SeaStar2 communication coprocessor. It also included an option for FPGA chips to be plugged directly into processor sockets, unlike the Cray XD1, which required a dedicated socket for the FPGA coprocessor.[29]
On November 13, 2006, Cray announced a new system, the Cray XMT, based on the MTA series of machines.[30][31] This system combined multi-threaded processors, as used on the original Tera systems, and the SeaStar2 interconnect used by the XT4. By reusing ASICs, boards, cabinets, and system software used by the comparatively higher volume XT4 product, the cost of making the very specialized MTA system could be reduced. A second generation of the XMT is scheduled for release in 2011, with the first system ordered by the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS).[32]
In 2006, Cray announced a vision of products dubbed Adaptive Supercomputing.[33] The first generation of such systems, dubbed the Rainier Project, used a common interconnect network (SeaStar2), programming environment, cabinet design, and I/O subsystem. These systems included the existing XT4 and the XMT. The second generation, launched as the XT5h, allowed a system to combine compute elements of various types into a common system, sharing infrastructure. The XT5h combined Opteron, vector, multithreaded, and FPGA compute processors in a single system.
In April 2008, Cray and Intel announced they would collaborate on future supercomputer systems. This partnership produced the Cray CX1 system, launched in September the same year. This was a deskside blade server system, comprising up to 16 dual- or quad-core Intel Xeon processors, with either Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux installed.[34]
By 2009, the largest computer system Cray had delivered was the Cray XT5 system at National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.[35] This system, with over 224,000 processing cores, was dubbed Jaguar and was the fastest computer in the world as measured by the LINPACK benchmark[36] at the speed of 1.75 petaflops[37] until being surpassed by the Tianhe-1A in October 2010. It was the first system to exceed a sustained performance of 1 petaflops on a 64-bit scientific application.
In May 2010, the Cray XE6 supercomputer was announced. The Cray XE6 system had at its core the new Gemini system interconnect. This new interconnect included a true global-address space and represented a return to the T3E feature set that had been so successful with Cray Research. This product was a successful follow-on to the XT3, XT4 and XT5 products. The first multi-cabinet XE6 system was shipped in July 2010. The next generation Cascade[38] systems were designed make use of future multicore and/or manycore processors from vendors such as Intel and Nvidia. Cascade was scheduled to be introduced in early 2013 and designed to use the next-generation network chip and follow-on to Gemini, code named Aries.
In early 2010, Cray also introduced the Cray CX1000, a rack-mounted system with a choice of compute-based, GPU-based, or SMP-based chassis.[39] The CX1 and CX1000 product lines were sold until late 2011.
In 2011, Cray announced the Cray XK6 hybrid supercomputer. The Cray XK6 system, capable of scaling to 500,000 processors and 50 petaflops of peak performance,[40] combines Cray's Gemini interconnect, AMD's multi-core scalar processors, and Nvidia's Tesla GPGPU processors. In October 2012 Cray announced the Cray XK7 which supports the Nvidia Kepler GPGPU and announced that the ORNL Jaguar system would be upgraded to an XK7 (renamed Titan) and capable of over 20 petaflops.[41] Titan was the world's fastest supercomputer as measured by the LINPACK benchmark[42] until the introduction of the Tianhe-2 in 2013, which is substantially faster.
In 2011 Cray also announced it had been awarded the $188 million Blue Waters contract with the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, after IBM had pulled out of the delivery.[43][44] This system was delivered in 2012 and was the largest system to date, in terms of cabinets and general-purpose x86 processors, that Cray had ever delivered.
In November 2011, the Cray Sonexion 1300 Data Storage System was introduced and signaled Cray's entry into the high performance storage business. This product used modular technology and a Lustre file system.[45][46]
In 2011, Cray launched the OpenACC parallel programming standard organization.[47] In 2019, Cray announced that it was deprecating OpenACC, and will support OpenMP.[48] However, in 2022, the Cray Fortran compiler still supported OpenACC,[49] in part due to its usage in the ICON climate simulation code.[50]
In April 2012, Cray announced the sale of its interconnect hardware development program and related intellectual property to Intel for $140 million.[51][52]
On November 9, 2012, Cray announced the acquisition of Appro International, Inc., a California-based privately held developer of advanced scalable supercomputing solutions.[53] As of 2012 the #3 provider on the Top100 supercomputer list, Appro builds some of the world's most advanced high performance computing (HPC) cluster systems. In 2012, Cray also opened a subsidiary in China.[54]
