National Science Foundation to Buy Japanese Supercomputer

The U.S. National Science Foundation has selected NEC Corp. of Japan as the primary vendor to supply a multimillion- dollar supercomputer for a Colorado weather research center, NEC said today, marking the first time the U.S. government has purchased such a machine from a Japanese company.

The decision came despite intense lobbying by U.S. supercomputer vendor Cray Research Inc. and several of its supporters in Congress, who have contended that NEC was unfairly offering the machine below cost and that the government must support the domestic supercomputer industry.

The NSF’s decision is a major blow to Cray, the longtime global leader in supercomputers that has fallen on hard times. Several other American supercomputer vendors have gone bankrupt, and Cray recently agreed to be acquired by rival Silicon Graphics Inc.

The U.S. has for years been lobbying Japan to open its market to U.S. supercomputers, and the Japanese have complained that even though Japanese government agencies have bought a number of Cray machines, the U.S. has not matched those moves.

NSF officials could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Chris Shimizu, an NEC spokesman, said he could not comment on details of the contract, which has been estimated at between $13 million and $35 million. He also declined to comment on a report in the New York Times that the U.S. Commerce Department had determined the NEC bid to be below cost.

Final terms of the deal have yet to be negotiated, Shimizu said. The machine will be used at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.