NEC walks away from supercomputer project

NEC HAS BLAMED the dire economic situation for its decision to pull out of a huge Japanese supercomputer project.

The AP reports that the government-led project is supposed to produce a next-generation supercomputer that is expected to be much faster than IBM's efforts and achieve peak speeds of up to 10 Petaflops.

Hitachi, which was hired by NEC to assist it with the project, will also have to pull out.

Apparently the Japanese government is prepared to spend $1.15 billion on the project, which was launched in September 2006.

The institute in charge of the project said that it will stick to its schedule which calls for production of a prototype to start by March 2010 and completion in 2012.

NEC was an important part of the design team but said that its own struggling business has forced it to halt participation in the manufacturing phase of the supercomputer effort. It recorded a $3 billion loss in the fiscal year that ended in March and will probably need a supercomputer of its own to calculate a way out of its financial woes. µ.