HP Announces New Supercomputers

Will the Apollo 8000's innovative liquid cooling feature put HP in the ranks of supercomputing leaders like IBM and Cray?

HP has announced two new supercomputer models under the new brand Apollo. The smaller one, HP Apollo 6000, is an air-cooled system that maximizes performance efficiency and makes HPC capabilities accessible to a wide range of enterprise customers. The prices starts around $150,000. With an external power shelf and the HP Advanced Power Manager, the HP Apollo 6000 System packs up to 160 servers per rack. When compared to competitive blade solutions, these servers can deliver greater performance in less space while using up to 46 percent less energy.
The second system, Apollo 8000, is the world's first 100 percent liquid cooled supercomputer, with built-in technology that protects the hardware. The technology called "dry-disconnect" cooling uses sealed heat pipes to circulate water past the cores. The system can pack in up to 144 servers per rack and offers compute power in the Petaflop range. Apollo 8000 promises $1 million energy savings over 5 years and will reduce CO2 emissions by 3800 tons per year.