Supercomputer-maker Cray today announced that the University of Western Australia will install a Cray XT3 system as part of the Western Australia Supercomputing Program (WASP). Among the research activities planned for the new supercomputer are major large-scale computational studies and simulations in the areas of geophysics, chemistry, astrophysics, biology, rock mechanics, genetic epidemiology, physics and quantum mechanics, and water research. WASP's charter is to integrate large-scale information from different disciplines and multiple spatial and temporal scales, enabling the cross-fertilization of algorithms and integration of common computational techniques in order to advance science in a number of fields. The Cray XT3 system was funded in part through a grant from the Australian Research Council under its Linkage Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities program. "The advanced research and scientific modeling that the Cray XT3 supercomputer can support represents modern science at its optimum," said Assistant Professor Karen Haines, WASP director. "The Cray XT3 system will give us the computational power needed to accomplish the analysis and modeling calculations for these models. The installation of the supercomputer is an essential precursor to the type of facilities that we envision will be necessary to handle the enormous computing demands of the major science projects planned for Western Australia over the next decade, such as the Australia Telescope National Facility Extended New Technology Demonstrator (xNTD) program that will be conducted under the auspices of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation." "We are excited to have been selected by the University as a partner in the WASP program, helping users develop the skills required to carry out leadership-class computational simulations," said Cray President and CEO Peter Ungaro. "Research and academic institutions worldwide are taking advantage of the balanced processing, communications power and exceptional scalability of the Cray XT3 supercomputer to enable breakthroughs in a number of important scientific and engineering fields."