SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwired - Jan 25, 2016) -  Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) today announced the Company has signed a $36 million contract to upgrade and expand the Cray® XC™ supercomputers and Cray® Sonexion® storage system at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). When the project is completed, the enhanced systems will allow the world-class numerical weather prediction and research center to continue to drive improvements in its highly-complex models to provide more accurate weather forecasts.

In June 2013, Cray announced it was awarded a contract to provide ECMWF with two Cray XC30™ supercomputers and a Cray Sonexion storage system. Under the terms of this new contract, Cray will expand and upgrade the supercomputers at ECMWF to Cray XC40™ systems, which will include next-generation Intel® Xeon® processors. ECMWF will also receive additional Cray Sonexion 2000 scale-out Lustre storage, and a 32-node Cray XC40-AC™ system with the next-generation of the Intel® Xeon Phi™ processor code-named "Knights Landing."

Located in Reading in the United Kingdom, ECMWF is focused on the development and operation of global models and data assimilation systems for the dynamics, thermodynamics and composition of the Earth's fluid envelope and interacting parts of the Earth system. An independent, intergovernmental organization supported by 34 nations, the center specializes in global numerical weather prediction up to a few weeks ahead. It also provides longer-range forecasts for up to a year ahead and runs the EU-funded Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring and Climate Change Services.

"This upgrade will help us to improve the quality of the service we provide to our Member and Co-operating States," said ECMWF Director of Research Erland Källén. "It will enable us to develop high-resolution ensemble forecasts that improve the prediction of severe weather events in the medium range, up to about two weeks ahead. It will also make it possible to introduce improved data assimilation methods, allowing us to use more of the available Earth system observations, and to produce more detailed and better-quality atmospheric composition forecasts as well as high-quality climate datasets (re-analyses)."

"We are very pleased that ECMWF has made the decision to upgrade its Cray systems, which will provide the organization's researchers and scientists with even more powerful, computational tools for advancing global numerical weather prediction," said Catalin Morosanu, Cray's vice president of sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. "The ability to easily and cost effectively upgrade our systems is an important design element of Cray supercomputers. This allows our customers to have a lower total cost of ownership of their systems over time, and quickly be able to deploy the latest and most-advanced technologies. We are proud of our relationship with ECMWF and the amazing work they do, and we are excited our partnership will continue well into the future."

Cray XC40 supercomputers are engineered to meet the performance challenges of today's most demanding HPC users. Special features of the Cray XC40 supercomputer include: the industry-leading Aries system interconnect; a Dragonfly network topology that frees applications from locality constraints; optional flash SSD enabled DataWarp applications I/O accelerator technology; innovative cooling systems to lower customers' total cost of ownership; the next-generation of the scalable, high performance and tightly integrated Cray Linux Environment that supports a wide range of applications; Cray's HPC optimized programming environment for improved performance and programmability; and the ability to handle a wide variety of processor types, including Intel® Xeon® processors, Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessors, and NVIDIA® Tesla® GPU accelerators.

The Cray Sonexion 2000 scale-out storage solution combines Cray's Lustre® expertise with a tightly integrated, unique design that allows for maximum scalability and performance. Management and operations are simplified through an appliance design with all storage components including software, storage and infrastructure.

Consisting of products and multiple years of service, the contract to upgrade and expand the Cray systems at ECMWF is valued at more than $36 million. System deliveries are expected in 2016.

For more information on the Cray XC40 supercomputers and Cray Sonexion storage systems, please visit the Cray website at www.cray.com.

About ECMWF
 ECMWF is an intergovernmental organisation supported by 34 states. It provides weather services with medium-range forecasts of global weather to 15 days ahead as well as with monthly and seasonal forecasts. ECMWF's computer system at its headquarters in Reading, United Kingdom, is one of the largest for meteorology worldwide and contains the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data. It runs a sophisticated global prediction model of the atmosphere and oceans. The national meteorological services of Member States and Co-operating States use ECMWF's products for their own national duties, in particular to give early warning of potentially damaging severe weather.

About Cray Inc.
 Global supercomputing leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) provides innovative systems and solutions enabling scientists and engineers in industry, academia and government to meet existing and future simulation and analytics challenges. Leveraging more than 40 years of experience in developing and servicing the world's most advanced supercomputers, Cray offers a comprehensive portfolio of supercomputers and big data storage and analytics solutions delivering unrivaled performance, efficiency and scalability. Cray's Adaptive Supercomputing vision is focused on delivering innovative next-generation products that integrate diverse processing technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to meet the market's continued demand for realized performance. Go to www.cray.com for more information.

Safe Harbor Statement
 This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, including, but not limited to, statements related to the timing and delivery of the system purchased by ECMWF and Cray's ability to deliver a system that meets ECMWF's requirements. These statements involve current expectations, forecasts of future events and other statements that are not historical facts. Inaccurate assumptions and known and unknown risks and uncertainties can affect the accuracy of forward-looking statements and cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could affect actual future events or results include, but are not limited to, the risk that the system required by ECMWF is not delivered in a timely fashion or does not perform as expected and such other risks as identified in the Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2015, and from time to time in other reports filed by Cray with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not rely unduly on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this release. Cray undertakes no duty to publicly announce or report revisions to these statements as new information becomes available that may change the Company's expectations.

Cray and Sonexion are registered trademarks of Cray Inc. in the United States and other countries, and XC, X30, XC40 and XC40-AC are trademarks of Cray Inc. Other product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.