cray-xcseriesSupercomputer maker Cray has secured a $6 million contract with the Danish Meteorological Institute to provide massive computing power that enables more accurate weather forecasts. The new system will result in a 10-fold improvement over the current Danish system.

The contract will also result in the first Cray systems in Iceland. That’s right, the supercomputers that power weather forecasts for Denmark will reside on an island nearly 1,000 miles away. The Danish Meteorological Institute chose a datacenter in Reykjavik, Iceland for year-round power and cooling efficiencies.

Cray now powers between 60 and 70 percent of global weather forecasts. Weather prediction agencies in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Switzerland and Mongolia all use Cray supercomputers to run complex weather simulations that help the predict future storms and other weather phenomena.

Seattle-based Cray has been building supercomputers for 40 years for oil and gas companies, the Defense Department and even a mysterious MLB team. However, its stock has declined in recent months, falling nearly 10 points since May. Cray stock is down about 1.25 percent after today’s news.

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