Sun wins $50m US defence research contract

Sun Microsystems has won a $50m contract from the US Department of Defence for the second phase of a high performance computing research project.

The three-year programme will address a number of critical areas for the department, including weather and ocean forecasting, cryptanalysis, weapons survivability and stealth design, surveillance and biotechnology.

The contract will be run by the Defence Advance Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which wants a new generation of economically viable systems with high levels of performance, programmability and reliability.

The project scope includes 'petascale' systems that can perform quadrillions of operations per second but still give ease-of-use and reliability.

This will culminate in a prototype design for a commercially-viable high productivity computing system, before a tender for the final phase of full-scale system development.

Scott McNealy, president and CEO of Sun, said in a statement: "As a total systems company with high-performance computing in our DNA, we're well positioned to deliver the next-generation system that will far outclass any of today's most powerful supercomputers. Our work will transform the way the world builds and uses high-end computer systems."