1999 was an exciting and productive year for Compaq and our partners in High Performance Computing. We completely refreshed our high performance systems product family with the 21264 generation of Alpha processors, starting in January with our dual processor AlphaServer DS20 and ending in November with our new 512 CPU AlphaServer SC supercomputer. We were selected to provide HPC solutions in a wide range of high visibility environments. We achieved our short-term goal of becoming the number 1 supplier of midrange, departmental HPC systems and surged to the #2 overall HPTC market share position, just one point behind the leader (according to International Data Corporation's January 1999 report). Perhaps most important, we and our partners achieved critical milestones in solving some of the most challenging computational science problems of our time.
Compaq's rollout of new HPC systems in 1999 reflects our fundamental long-term commitment to the Alpha architecture. We launched the 21264 processor running at 575 MHz early in the year and upgraded to the 21264a running at more than 700MHz by December. We also laid out detailed road maps for the next two generations of Alpha processors and started advanced development on the two generations that will follow. We expanded our marketing and technology partnership with Samsung and Alpha Processors, Inc., by agreeing to jointly fund a $500 million investment program to accelerate next generation Alpha technologies and expand market opportunities. Alpha is a strategic technology not only for HPC, but also for NonStop(tm) eBusiness. The steps we took in 1999 ensure that Alpha will continue as the industry performance leader for many years to come and will find success in an expanded set of target markets.
AlphaServers running Compaq's premier Tru64 UNIX operating system were selected for HPC in a range of industries and applications. The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) recently selected Compaq to build a massive supercomputer that will be the largest in Europe. The supercomputer will harness the power of more than 2500 Alpha processors and will handle mammoth workloads at five trillion operations per second (five teraFLOPS). Scientists at the Riken Institute in Japan, and Swinburne University of Technology in Australia purchased scaleable clusters of AlphaServers for basic research in physics and astronomy. Engineers at PSA Peugeot-Citroen and Hyundai, Inc. implemented Tru64 solutions for structural and fluid dynamics analysis. SmithKline Beecham installed a TruCluster containing more than 100 Alpha CPUs for DNA research. And Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory purchased two AlphaServer SC supercomputers that, when interconnected, will power computational science across a range of disciplines with 512 Alpha processors running at 667MHz.
In addition to Tru64 UNIX, Compaq supports Linux solutions for HPC. We offer a range of Linux-certified platforms. We factory integrate Linux clusters to your specifications. In 1999 we ported our leadership Alpha compilers and math libraries to Linux, and we introduced a 1u rack-mount AlphaServer, the DS10e optimized for high density Linux clusters.
Alpha workstations and servers continued their dominant role as the systems of choice in the world’s largest Linux-based HPC solutions. Sandia National Laboratories dramatically expanded their C-Plant system by adding some 800 AlphaStations, bringing their total cluster across two locations to more than 1300 CPUs. The National Center for Atmospheric Research selected Alpha running Linux to power their 4 TeraFLOPS next-generation weather forecasting system at the Forecast Systems Lab. Compaq partner High Performance Technologies, Inc. will integrate and support the FSL Linux cluster.
Perhaps the most exciting area of high performance computing accomplishment in 1999 was in bioinformatics, where the schedule for mapping the full human genome was dramatically compressed through more aggressive and large scale application of sequencing and computing technology. The public Human Genome Project now expects to publish their rough draft this spring, while Celera Genomics just announced it has completed the sequencing of the human genome. In 1999, two other key milestones were met. A team of public researchers led by the Sanger Centre's Dr. Ian Dunham completed the sequencing of Chromosome 22, with 33 million base pairs. And Celera Genomics completed Drosophila, with 200 million base pairs.
Compaq is proud of our contribution as IT partner to these efforts. In fact, Richard Durbin, Assistant Director at the Sanger Centre, said: "Without Compaq's Alpha technology and TRU64 UNIX software our efforts to analyze and decode chromosome 22 would not have been successful. Today, the information and biological revolutions are being merged in the life sciences business. We are stretching the boundaries of computational science."
We salute the efforts of Celera and the Sanger Center and look forward to continued collaboration and challenges. We thank our customers, partners, and employees for their contributions to our 1999 success, and we wish you all a productive and exciting Y2K.
Sincerely,
Bill Blake
Vice President, High Performance Technical Computing
Compaq Computer Corporation