--NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE

The US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Contracting Office intends to issue a sole-source fixed-price contract to ComnetCo, Inc., located in Huntington Station, NY, to supply an SGI Altix 8200LX Air-Cooled Cluster with Hypercube Topology. This high-performance computing system is designated for the Environmental Laboratory’s Computational Chemistry Team to support complex and precise research that demands substantial computational power. Key specifications for the system include multicore processors with shared memory on a node, a minimum clock speed of 2.75 GHz, network capabilities equivalent to InfiniBand switch speeds, compatibility with the Gaussian03 software suite, at least 20 TB of SATA storage, and expandability. The system is required to be delivered to ERDC in Vicksburg, MS, by September 30, 2008. The award will be conducted under Simplified Acquisition Procedures with a firm-fixed price. Although it is planned as a sole-source award, other capable vendors are invited to respond within ten days from the publication date if able to meet the requirements. This notice serves as an advance announcement rather than a solicitation, and no quotes or formal proposals are being requested at this time. The contract is classified under NAICS code 425110.