The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says it will increase supercomputing capacity to provide more reliable and detailed forecasts. By October 2015, the capacity of each of NOAA’s two operational supercomputers will jump to 2.5 petaflops, for a total of 5 petaflops – a nearly tenfold increase from the current capacity.
The increase in supercomputing capacity comes via a $44.5 million investment using NOAA’s operational high performance computing contract with IBM, $25 million of which was provided through the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 related to the consequences of Hurricane Sandy. Cray is expected to serve as a subcontractor for IBM to provide the new systems to NOAA.
[Image courtesy: NOOA]