The Convey supercomputer, to be introduced this week, promises to be simpler to program, using Intel-based field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that can be reconfigured with different hardware “personalities” to compute problems for different industries, initially aiming at bioinformatics, computer-aided design, financial services and oil and gas exploration.

Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California, San Diego, believes that the most important quality of the Convey computer is that it will be a green supercomputer.