IBM and Cray have beaten out Sun Microsystems to win sizable U.S. government contracts to design a new-generation supercomputer.On Tuesday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the two companies four-year contracts to design a supercomputer that is 100 times more powerful than today’s most powerful systems, yet is simpler to program, administer and use. Cray’s contract is valued at US$250 million, and IBM’s is worth $244 million.Each company is expected to have a prototype supercomputer ready by 2010. The contracts were awarded as part of DARPA’s High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program, which is targeted at the national security community, science and industrial sectors.Launched in 2002, the program’s goal is to develop a system capable of performing calculations at the rate of two to four petaflops per second. A petaflop is one quadrillion (one thousand trillion) calculations per second. “Flop” stands for floating-point operations. The fastest supercomputer in operation today, an IBM BlueGene system, operates at 360 teraflops, or 360 trillion calculations per second.Sun Microsystems, which had been funded in earlier rounds of the contract, lost out on the latest round.However, the company still plans to integrate the technology it had been developing into its product lines, a Sun spokeswoman said.Besides developing prototypes of the supercomputers, IBM and Cray are also tasked with building programming tools that speed the time it takes to write applications tenfold compared with what was possible when the HPCS program began.DARPA says the ultimate goal of the project is to create a new generation of economically viable, high-productivity computing systems that can be sold to national security and high-end industrial users. Federal agencies likely to use the supercomputers will include the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Agency. By Robert Mullins, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau) Related Links: U.S. Supercomputer Gets Performance Boost IBM to Build New DOE Supercomputer IBM Tops Supercomputer List, Opteron Gains Ground IBM Translation Software to Be Tested by U.S. Military in IraqCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP What goes well with Viña Concha y Toro wines? Meat, fish, poultry, and SAP Viña Concha y Toro, a wine producer that distributes to more than 140 countries worldwide, paired its operation with the SAP Business Technology Platform to enhance its operation and product. By Tom Caldecott, SAP Contributor Dec 04, 2023 4 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by Azul How to maximize ROI by choosing the right Java partner for your organization Choosing the right Java provider is a critical decision that can have a significant impact on your organization’s success. By asking the right questions and considering the total cost of ownership, you can ensure that you choose the best Java p By Scott Sellers Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Application Management brandpost Sponsored by DataStax Ask yourself: How can genAI put your content to work? Generative AI applications can readily be built against the documents, emails, meeting transcripts, and other content that knowledge workers produce as a matter of course. By Bryan Kirschner Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence feature The CIO’s new role: Orchestrator-in-chief CIOs have unique insight into everything that happens in a company. Some are using that insight to take on a more strategic role. By Minda Zetlin Dec 04, 2023 12 mins CIO C-Suite Business IT Alignment Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe