Icons: Cray's machines help to power the world

The world would be a much different place without Cray Inc.

Here's a simple fact. Without the Chippewa Falls company, our national defense and our nation's scientific knowledge would be much drastically different. 

Cray, Inc. is a descendant of supercomputer genius Seymour Cray, Jr., who founded Cray Research. That company merged with SGI, and later SGI created a Cray Research business unit. 

That unit then was sold to Seattle-based Tera Computer Company in March 2000. And Tera became Cray Inc.

Today, Cray fills computing and storage needs, along with handling what's called big data needs. One of its latest products, the Cray CS-Storm, is a cluster supercomputer. It is eye blink fast.

"The ... Cray CS300 system dramatically increases the performance levels customers can tap to drive innovation and discovery in seismic imaging, cybersecurity, deep learning and many other scientific computing areas," said Sumit Gapa, general manager of accelerated computing of NVIDIA Corp.

Recently, the National Nuclear Security Administration awarded Cray a $174 million contract. The company says: "The new Cray supercomputer will be used to ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of the United States' nuclear stockpile."

Just one example on how the nation relies on Cray Inc. to maintain its scientific leadership.