Cray

Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed in the TOP500, which ranks the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Cray manufactures its products in part in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where its founder, Seymour Cray, was born and raised. The company also has offices in Bloomington, Minnesota (which have been converted to Hewlett Packard Enterprise offices), and numerous other sales, service, engineering, and R&D locations around the world. In 1972, the company's predecessor, Cray Research, Inc. (CRI), was founded by computer designer Seymour Cray. In 1989, Seymour Cray formed Cray Computer Corporation (CCC), which went bankrupt in 1995. In 1996, Cray Research was acquired by Silicon Graphics (SGI). In 2000, Cray Inc. was formed when Tera Computer Company purchased the Cray Research Inc. business from SGI and adopted the name of its acquisition. In 2019, the company was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $1.3 billion. In 1950, Seymour Cray began working in the computing field when he joined Engineering Research Associates (ERA) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. There, he helped to create the ERA 1103. ERA eventually became part of UNIVAC, and began to be phased out. In 1960, he left the company, a few years after former ERA employees set up Control Data Corporation (CDC). He initially worked out of the CDC headquarters in Minneapolis, but grew upset by constant interruptions by managers. He eventually set up a lab in his hometown of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, about 85 miles to the east. Cray had a string of successes at CDC, including the CDC 6600 and CDC 7600. When CDC ran into financial difficulties in the late 1960s, development funds for Cray's follow-on CDC 8600 became scarce. When he was told the project would have to be put "on hold" in 1972, Cray left to form his own company, Cray Research, Inc.