Intel Closes Alliance Deal with Cray, Pressures AMD

According to the deal, Cray, which currently use AMD chips for internally developed technology, will use Intel microprocessor chips.

Intel and Cray said they will also collaborate on joint research and development, working on a range of high-performance systems and technologies in the coming years.

Supercomputers, which are mainly used for various purposes including weapons development and drug design, currently use enormous amount of multi-core chips, each with two to four calculating engines but the two firms said that future machines will have more chips that have many processors.

Peter Ungaro, Cray's chief executive, forecast that individual systems may have a million electronic brains in two years.

Ungaro said that Cray will continue using AMD chips as well offering its customers various options under an approach of adaptive supercomputing.

Intel vice president and general manager, Kirk Skaugen, said that Intel is currently working on an advanced scheme of its own for connecting multi-core chips.