WORLD'S FIRST 1,024-PROCESSOR SGI ORIGIN 3000 SERIES SERVER INSTALLED AT NETHERLANDS NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTING FACILITY.

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Netherlands Computing Facilities (NCF) Foundation have implemented an SGI(TM) Origin(TM) 3000 series supercomputer from SGI (NYSE: SGI) at SARA Computing and Networking Services. The supercomputer will enable advanced fundamental and applied scientific research. The new facility was opened today by HRH Prince Willem-Alexander. Mr. L.M.L.H.A Hermans, minister of education, culture and science, also attended.

The SGI(TM) supercomputer will help the Dutch academic community to understand and resolve the world's most complex scientific, technical and medical issues. Immediate areas of research will include climate research; computational medical science, water management and water quality calculations (areas of particular interest for the Prince); fluid dynamics and turbulence modeling; and computational chemistry, including drug design.

The supercomputer, which is housed and operated by SARA, is one of the first European implementations of the new SGI Origin 3000 series and the first 1,024-processor SGI Origin 3000 series server to be installed worldwide. The SGI Origin 3000 series server is a highly scalable, high-performance SGI(TM) NUMA server with modular architecture, meaning each system can be tailored to exactly match performance and application requirements.

The new supercomputer features 1,024 MIPS(R) processors that will deliver more than one TFLOPS (a trillion operations per second) of peak performance, 10TB (10,000GB) of online storage and 100TB of near-line StorageTek storage.

Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO of SGI, said, "SGI was selected to manufacture, install and provide a six-year maintenance contract for the supercomputer in February of this year after extensive competitive evaluation by NCF. SGI consultants have worked closely with the Dutch research council and supercomputing authorities since the contract was awarded. We are delighted to provide them with a tailored solution capable of meeting their cutting edge scientific objectives. SGI has a strong reputation for meeting the needs of the most demanding customers in the high-performance computing sector."

Following the opening ceremony, a symposium on the scientific use of supercomputers will take place at SARA to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of NCF, which was founded on November 22, 1990.

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research is the national granting organization for the advancement of fundamental and applied scientific research. NWO is located on the Web at www.nwo.nl.

The Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation, a foundation under the umbrella of NWO, formulates and implements policy on the national high-end computer infrastructure. It does so in close connection with the NWO research councils' policies and priorities and with the high-performance computing centers and departments of universities. NCF also grants access to available systems on the basis of peer review. NCF is located on the Web at www.nwo.nl/ncf.

SARA Computing and Networking Services is a center of expertise in the area of computers and networks. SARA supplies a complete package of high-performance computing and networking services, based on state-of-the-art information technology. SARA's services in housing and operating the Dutch national supercomputer have been well-established for more than 15 years. SARA is located on the Web at www.sara.nl.

SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., SGI is located on the Web at www.sgi.com.