SGI Reaches Significant Sales Milestone

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (August 1, 2001)—SGI (NYSE: SGI), theworld’s leading high-performance computing, complex datamanagement and visualization solutions provider, today announced thatit has achieved several sales milestones in its recently completedquarter.

Since the launch of its revolutionary NUMAflex™ modularcomputing approach just one year ago, the company announced it hasshipped close to 30,000 processors of SGI™ Origin™ 3000series servers and SGI™ Onyx® 3000 series visualizationsystems—including one of the most powerful supercomputers in theworld, a specially built 1,024-processor SGI™ Origin™ 3800server at NASA Ames for research in the areas of aeronautics, earthsciences and life sciences—to customers around the world.

This past quarter also marked the sale of the 500th SGI™Reality Center™ immersive visualization facility.

Some of the companies that have recently purchased or installed newSGI™ 3000 family supercomputers include the following:

• Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University purchased a768-processor SGI Origin 3800 supercomputer, a 32-processor SGI™Onyx® 3400 visualization system and an SGI™ TotalPerformance 9400 (TP9400) Fibre Channel storage system with 35TB tofurther its work in bioinformatics and in computational chemistryresearch and education. SGI will also provide systems integration andservices.

• National Center of Gene Research of Shanghai Life Science purchaseda 32-processor SGI Origin 3800 system that will be used for the geneticanalysis of rice grain. The aim is to create a higher quality of grainthat is virus-resistant and at the same time increase the quantity ofrice production.

• The Scripps Research Institute purchased a 128-processor SGI Origin3800 supercomputer, two 64-processor SGI™ 2000 series servers,1TB of RAID and an SGI™ Origin™ 200 server—allrunning on a SAN using CXFS, the clustered, shared, high-performancefilesystem from SGI—for large computational chemistrysimulations, crucial in scientific discovery.

• University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute for DigitalSimulation and Advanced Computation recently purchased two SGI Origin3000 series systems with a total of 192 processors and 3.5TB ofSGI™ TP9400 RAW storage configured in a storage area network(SAN) environment using CXFS™ storage management software fromSGI. The Supercomputing Institute provides supercomputing resources toUniversity of Minnesota faculty members and their collaborators.Research at the Supercomputing Institute includes, but is not limitedto, computational chemistry, computational fluid dynamics, structuremechanics, design optimization, structural and molecular biology,genomics, scientific visualization and geophysics.

• Audi of Germany selected SGI systems for its entire productdevelopment process, from styling and design to simulation and tooling.Audi purchased a 32-processor SGI™ Origin™ 3400high-performance computing system as its crash simulation andstructural analysis server in body engineering, an SGI™Origin™ 3200 server with an SGI™ Total Performance 9100(TP9100) RAID storage array with 2.6TB as its file server for tooling,two Origin 200 servers with TP9100 storage arrays with 3.6TB as fileservers for CAD and 17 Silicon Graphics® Octane2™ visualworkstations for CATIA and Pro/E in design. Audi also has 7 SGI RealityCenter facilities installed in Germany.

• Volvo Car Corporation of Sweden purchased a 128-processor SGI Origin3800 high-performance computing system in keeping with its long-termstrategy to maintain the leading position in crash simulation andsafety. Volvo’s safety strategy includes two areas:high-performance computing in an early phase of the development of anew car model and real tests. According to Volvo, the extra computingperformance delivered by the SGI Origin 3800 system will give thecompany the opportunity to strengthen its advanced Safety Centre inGothenburg and will help it guarantee that the end product, the cars,will be dependably safe.

• Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center recently tookdelivery of a 512-processor SGI Origin 3800 system. This SGI™supercomputer, one of the world’s most sophisticated tools forglobal weather and ocean modeling, utilizes the largest existingreal-time databases of oceanic and atmospheric observations.

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GeophysicalFluid Dynamics Laboratory recently deployed a 1,152-processor SGIOrigin 3000 series supercomputer to develop new and realistic modelsfor predicting climate variability, detecting climate change andforecasting hurricanes to prevent loss of life and minimize propertydamage.

• Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation purchased twoSGI™ Origin™ 3400 systems for managing a 180TB videodatabase and all querying to the metadata. The foundation has collectedmore than 50,000 testimonies from 57 countries in 32 languages and iscurrently cataloguing more than 100,000 hours of videotaped accounts ofsurvivors, liberators, rescuers and other eyewitnesses of theHolocaust. The 200,000-plus-videotape archive would take more than 13years to view in its entirety.

• Travelocity.com, one of the most popular one-stop travel sites onthe Internet, purchased four SGI Origin 3000 family servers to meet thedemands placed on its reservations systems. Travelers book billions ofdollars in air, car and hotel reservations each year onTravelocity.com.

More than 500 SGI Reality Center Facilities InstalledWorldwide
Since the opening of the world’s first Reality Center facility inReading, England in 1994, SGI has pioneered the concept of animmersive, collaborative visualization environment. Today, 533 SGIReality Center immersive visualization facilities deliver the highestquality performance and realism, enabling technical and creativeprofessionals to engage in interactive, real-time engineering anddesign review, multidimensional data analysis, critical training,presentation and command-and-control operations. At the heart of everyReality Center facility is the SGI™ Onyx® family of visualsupercomputers, designed to simultaneously process 3D graphics, imagingand video data in real-time.

• DaimlerChrysler purchased the 500th SGI RealityCenter—bringing the total number of SGI immersive visualizationfacilities within the automotive giant to 53 systems worldwide. WithSGI Reality Center facilities, DaimlerChrysler has successfullyintegrated virtual reality technology throughout its new vehicleproduct development process. Through visualization of a component, anassembly or a complete vehicle, virtual reality enhances the quality ofthe development team’s work and shortens the time required forproduct development—allowing the team to introduce new featuresand respond to market trends more quickly.

• BP recently purchased its 20th Highly Immersive VisualizationEnvironment (HIVE) system from SGI for seismic interpretation,reservoir analysis, geological modeling, collaborative data analysisand peer review. All 20 systems will be deployed by year-end 2001.Since the first HIVE was purchased more than three years ago, theSGI-equipped HIVES have become an essential and integral part ofBP’s everyday business. SGI and HIVEs have proven to be acritical link between people and software. BP is a leader in energycompanies who are making immersive visualization part of their standardwork procedure and BP will be the first to expand the use ofvisualization well beyond the typical Exploration and Production (E& P) applications.

• The Picatinny Arsenal Reality Center provides the highest resolutiongraphics, allowing users to interact with life-size imagery to supportthe Army’s simulation-based acquisition (SBA) and simulation andmodeling in support of acquisition, requirements and training (SMART)initiatives. The Reality Center will provide collaborative immersiveviewing and interaction with virtual munitions prototypes and virtualreality simulations in real-time. SGI Reality Center technology willhelp the Army arrive at better decisions in less time—providingenormous cost savings while enhancing productivity and horizontalintegration.

About SGI
SGI, formerly known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a technologysolutions provider with a broad range of high-performance computing,advanced graphics and consulting services that enable its technical andcreative customers to maintain a competitive advantage in their corebusinesses. Whether being used to design and build safer cars andairplanes, discover new medications and oil reserves, help us tounderstand and better predict the weather, or entertain us withthrilling movie special effects, SGI systems and expertise areempowering of a world of innovation and discovery. The company, locatedon the Web at www.sgi.com, is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.,and has offices worldwide.