In a move that could have broad implications for the high-performance computing (HPC) market, Intel and Cray have announced a broad collaboration that will see engineers from the two companies work together on future products and projects.

With the first Intel-Cray products appearing in the 2010-2011 timeframe, it's clear that three Intel technologies have caught Cray's eye: the native 32nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) scheme, and the forthcoming discrete, x86-based graphics product, codenamed Larrabee. Cray will plug all of these components into its SeaStar interconnect fabric, and when combined with Cray Linux they'll make for an HPC and floating-point monster.

The first piece of the Intel-Cray puzzle is Sandy Bridge, which will debut in 2010 as Intel's first native 32nm processor.

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