NEC Quits Supercomputer Project
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By MARIYAMAGUCHI – 1 day ago
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. said Thursdayit will withdraw from a government-led project to produce anext-generation supercomputer, citing falling profits amid theglobal economic crisis.
The decision could deal a major setback for Japan's ambitiousplan to develop a supercomputer that is much faster than thecurrent leader. Hitachi, who was working on NEC's contract for theproject, will also have to pull out.
The government-funded research institute Riken, which runs theprogram, said it will review the estimated 110 billion yen ($1.15billion) project that was launched in September 2006.
Riken did not give details about a possible replacement for NECand Hitachi. But the institute said it plans to stick to itsschedule — which calls for production of a prototype to start byMarch 2010 and completion in 2012.
Despite the setback, Fujitsu Ltd. is still working on anothersystem being developed by the program.
NEC — which had played a key role in earlier phases ofarchitecture design, review and development of the system — saidits own struggling business has forced it to halt participation inthe manufacturing phase of the project.
It recorded a net loss of 297 billion yen ($3 billion) lastfiscal year through March amid the global slump, down sharply froma profit of 22.7 billion yen.
"A manufacturing phase would require a substantial investment,and a share of the cost would cause us a major impact on ourbusiness performance for the current fiscal year," NEC said in astatement.
Supercomputers are used for advanced research in areas such asspace science, environmental simulations and meteorology, whichrequire massive calculations.
Japan's project, which is now at its final stage of systemdesign, aims to develop the world's fastest supercomputers that canoperate as fast as 10 petaflops. Each petaflop is 1,000 trillionoperations per second.
The current record is one petaflop achieved last year by U.S.scientists, including IBM Corp.
Ring Yang