July 14, 2009, 9:15 am
I think this falls into the category of credible rumor. Last week Vizworld.com reported on a tip that the new SGI had backed out of a deal by the old SGI and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. From their coverage
About a year ago, the National Science Foundation worked with PSC to prepare for a 1 PetaFlop system to be deployed there and integrated into the TeraGrid, a large global supercomputing network used for academic and public research.  The result was an SGI UltraViolet system, approximately 197 cabinets, 100,000 cores, and all of it for the low price of $30 million dollars.
Well, that was with the old SGI.¬† News now is that the new SGI has found other customers willing to pay higher ‚Äúmore reasonable‚Äù prices for these same cabinets, and has decided not to honor the original offer.¬† Legally, they don‚Äôt have to honor them but it puts PSC and the NSF in a tight spot as they now have $30 million that‚Äôs supposed to magically turn into a 1PF supercomputer, and won‚Äôt…
