Silicon Graphics Will Unveil Desk-Side Computer With the Power of a Cray

In a move that could make the power of a supercomputer available to a much wider audience, Silicon Graphics will announce today that it has packed the power of a multimillion-dollar Cray supercomputer into a line of desk-side machines starting at just $120,000.

The new systems, targeted at scientists and engineers, are based on an advanced chip technology that effectively puts supercomputer power onto a single chip. Analysts said the technology could pose a threat to traditional supercomputer vendors such as Cray Research and NEC, who are already under pressure from radical new designs that use so-called massively parallel processing.

Earlier this week, a company run by former Cray designer Steve Chen shut its doors after International Business Machines withdrew from the project, largely because of fears that the market for traditional supercomputers was eroding. Seymour Cray, founder of Cray Research, has also faced a struggle in keeping his second company, Cray Computer, afloat.

“We can do to the traditional supercomputers what the PCs and workstations did to the mainframe,” said Ed McCracken, chief executive of Mountain View, Calif.-based Silicon Graphics, a leader in graphics workstations.

Traditional supercomputers are based on large, complex and expensive central processors, and often use several such processors linked together.