HPE Cray

HPE Cray
Name	HPE Cray
Type	Subsidiary
Founded	1972 (Cray Research), integrated into Hewlett Packard Enterprise 2019
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington
Industry	Supercomputing
Products	Supercomputers, high-performance computing systems, exascale-class systems
Parent	Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE Cray

HPE Cray is the high-performance computing division of Hewlett Packard Enterprise formed from the integration of Cray Research into HPE's product portfolio. The organization combines heritage from pioneering entities such as Cray Research, SGI, and Cray Inc. to produce supercomputing systems used by national laboratories, universities, and corporations worldwide. It collaborates with institutions including the Department of Energy, CERN, NASA, and national research agencies to deliver systems for climate modeling, astrophysics, and artificial intelligence.

History

Cray Research, founded by Seymour Cray and associated with locations like Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and Minneapolis, set early standards in vector supercomputing that influenced later work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The company’s lineage intersects with firms such as Cray Inc., Silicon Graphics International, and Tera Computer Company, and with acquisitions involving SGI and corporate transactions including Hewlett-Packard Company and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Strategic partnerships and competitive contexts involved peers like IBM, Fujitsu, NEC Corporation, Hitachi, and Intel Corporation. HPE Cray’s formation reflects consolidation trends in the supercomputing sector seen alongside mergers such as Dell Technologies with EMC Corporation, and market dynamics shaped by procurement programs like the U.S. Exascale Computing Project. The group’s history is marked by collaborations with funding and policy bodies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the European Commission, and national laboratories such as Argonne National Laboratory and institutions like University of California, Berkeley.

Product lines and architectures

HPE Cray systems span architectures influenced by innovations from entities like Cray Research and modern designs integrating processors from Intel Corporation, AMD, NVIDIA, and accelerator technologies from Arm Ltd. partners. Microarchitecture decisions cite families such as Xeon Scalable processors and EPYC (AMD) processors, while GPU accelerators reference NVIDIA A100, NVIDIA H100, and competitors like AMD Instinct. Interconnect technologies include variants drawing heritage from designs comparable to Cray XC network topologies and industry standards from InfiniBand Trade Association, Mellanox Technologies, and custom fabrics similar to those used by Fujitsu in its systems. Storage solutions reflect collaboration with firms such as Dell Technologies, NetApp, and software-defined approaches from Open Fabrics Alliance contributors. Cooling and facility engineering practices parallel work by organizations like Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and companies such as Schneider Electric and Siemens in data center infrastructure.

Notable systems and deployments

HPE Cray systems have been deployed at national and international sites including Oak Ridge National Laboratory (collaborating with projects similar to Summit), Argonne National Laboratory (paralleling systems like Aurora), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (in contexts related to Sequoia-class procurements), and European centers such as CERN and national supercomputing centers in countries like Germany, United Kingdom, and France. Commercial and academic deployments include partnerships with University of Oxford, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA, and industrial collaborations with Boeing, ExxonMobil, and BP. International programs and procurements involved in deployments echo competitions among vendors like IBM, Fujitsu, NEC Corporation, and China National Supercomputing Center stakeholders. HPE Cray installations support workloads across domains including climate science by groups at Met Office, genomics research at institutes like Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and machine learning research at centers associated with DeepMind and major universities.

Software and ecosystem

The software ecosystem for HPE Cray integrates components from open-source projects and proprietary stacks, working with communities around Linux Foundation projects and distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Middleware and resource managers include technologies comparable to Slurm Workload Manager, OpenPBS, and orchestration integrations with containers influenced by Docker and Kubernetes ecosystems. Scientific software suites reference toolchains like GCC, Intel oneAPI, GNU Compiler Collection, and libraries from ARM Forge and Cray PAT-like profiling tools; numerical libraries cite roots in projects like LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, and PETSc. Interoperability efforts involve standards bodies including MPI Forum and the OpenACC and OpenMP communities. Partnerships with independent software vendors encompass collaborations with firms such as Altair Engineering, ANSYS, Siemens PLM Software, and bioinformatics vendors employed by groups like European Bioinformatics Institute.

Market position and acquisitions

HPE Cray’s market position results from mergers and strategic acquisitions involving companies such as Cray Inc., Silicon Graphics International, and the acquisition of supercomputing assets by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Its competitive landscape includes major vendors like IBM, Fujitsu, Dell Technologies, and regional players such as Sugon and Inspur. Procurement contexts involve agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy and funding mechanisms from entities such as European Commission Horizon 2020. Corporate strategy aligns with enterprise customers including Siemens, Shell, and national laboratories including Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The business evolution mirrors patterns seen in technology sectors influenced by acquisitions like HPE’s previous transactions with Aruba Networks and SimpliVity.

Research and development initiatives

HPE Cray engages in R&D collaborations with national labs and universities such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. Research areas include exascale computing aligned with programs like the U.S. Exascale Computing Project, accelerator integration akin to projects at NVIDIA research labs, and machine learning optimization in partnership with organizations similar to Google DeepMind and Facebook AI Research. Energy-efficient cooling and facility design work references collaborations with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and industrial partners including Schneider Electric. Standards and interoperability research engages groups such as the OpenMP Architecture Review Board, the MPI Forum, and the Linux Foundation to advance scalable software ecosystems.

Category:Supercomputers