HPC startup SiCortex reportedly closes its doors

SiCortex, a startup that tried to stake out new ground in the high-performance computing market with machines designed for energy efficiency, has reportedly shut down.

SiCortex, based in Maynard, Mass., seemed to be on a roll, reporting revenue growth of more than 100% in the first quarter of 2009, based on sales of machines that could exceed $1 million. But SiCortex shut down operations Wednesday, after its venture capital investors pulled out, according to a report on HPCWire, which covers the high-performance computing industry.

"Following the sudden loss of venture capital funding, HPC system provider SiCortex shut down operations earlier today, according to a well-placed source within the company who wished not to be named," HPCwire reported. "The majority of employees have been laid off, and the company will seek an immediate sale of its assets."

A skeleton crew is staying on to support existing customers and find an "immediate exit strategy," HPCwire reports.

Earlier this year, SiCortex officials said they had 84 employees. That includes CEO Chris Stone, a former Novell executive responsible for engineering and product management from 2002 to 2004; and co-founder and chief architect Jud Leonard, who designed the architecture behind SiCortex's systems, which are positioned as an alternative to Intel-based clusters.

Rather than setting out to build the world's fastest supercomputer, SiCortex designed machines capable of delivering ultra-fast performance to small enterprises, universities and other customers while using much less power than rival machines. SiCortex's product lineup includes a desktop computer with 72 processors, a mid-range system with 1,458 processors, and the biggest of all, a 5,832-processor system that costs more than $1 million and delivers speeds of eight teraflops, which means it can perform 8 trillion calculations per second. SiCortex said it has sold more than 60 machines, but according to HPCwire has not yet turned an operating profit.

SiCortex customer Gerry McCartney, the CIO at Purdue University, called SiCortex an innovative company that may have been ahead of its time. "The market's not quite ready for that massively parallel implementation," McCartney says. "That whole energy efficient architecture is the way the market has to go. They've come up with a very innovative solution, one that works right out of the box. The market wasn't in a place where they could ride it out for another 12 months, which I suspect is what they needed."

McCartney said Stone called him Wednesday but that they weren't able to link up, and so he has not yet received any confirmation from SiCortex that the company is shutting down. Purdue has a three-year support contract with SiCortex, which McCartney expects will be honored. So far, Purdue hasn't experienced any problems with the machine, and McCartney said he hopes the SiCortex technology will live on in some way.

"It's disappointing. We really liked that company and we really liked that product," he says.