Merck Orders Three Cray Supercomputers

Merck & Co. has agreed to buy three supercomputers for drug research from Cray Research, a unit of Mountain View-based Silicon Graphics Inc. Cray didn’t disclose how much the pharmaceutical company will pay for the three computers. It said Merck ordered a T916, which has a top speed of 2 billion calculations a second, for its Rahway, N.J., laboratory, as well as a J916se for its West Point, Pa., lab and a J98se for the Montreal lab. The J916se and J98se are low-cost compact supercomputers designed to be used as simulation servers. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., is one of the largest U.S. drug companies. Silicon Graphics is the world’s largest supercomputer maker. It bought Cray, based in Eagan, Minn., in July 1996.