New Gene Sequencer to Break $1,000 Cost Barrier With NVIDIA Tesla GPU Acceleration

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 31, 2012) - NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators are enabling Life Technologies Corporation's new Ion Proton System to accelerate primary genome-sequence analysis -- the computation that generates DNA base pairs -- by over 16 times. This will dramatically reduce the cost to sequence an entire human genome from about $1 billion a decade ago to $1,000 in the near future.

"GPU acceleration and other advanced Ion Proton features enable every laboratory in the world to take advantage of human genome sequencing quickly and easily, without costly IT investments," said Alan Williams, vice president of software and engineering in the Ion Torrent unit at Life Technologies Corporation. "By democratizing genome sequencing, we expect to see an unprecedented wave of innovation in life sciences and the advancement of clinical research."

The Ion Proton System's technology builds on the rapid advances in increasing throughput, accuracy and read-length achieved with the Life Technologies Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) Sequencer, which also uses GPUs to accelerate primary analysis. The Ion PGM sequencer was the first to decode the deadly 2011 E. coli bacteria outbreak in Germany because of its exceptional speed.

Setting new standards for performance, ease of use and affordability, the Ion Proton System enables researchers to rapidly go from multiplex sample sequencing to genome-scale sequencing on a single platform. At one-fifth the cost of light-based genome-scale sequencing systems, it can save researchers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"GPU acceleration has become pervasive in all aspects of computing for life science applications and will enable research to push the envelope of scientific discovery," said Sumit Gupta, general manager of the Tesla accelerated computing business unit at NVIDIA. "The pace of research has fundamentally been accelerated by the use of GPUs for everything from gene sequencers and sequence analysis to molecular modeling and diagnostic imaging."

About NVIDIA Tesla GPUs NVIDIA Tesla GPUs are massively parallel accelerators based on the NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing platform and programming model. Tesla GPUs are designed from the ground up for power-efficient, high performance computing, computational science, and supercomputing, delivering dramatically higher application acceleration for a range of scientific and commercial applications than a CPU-only approach.

More information about NVIDIA Tesla GPUs is available at the Tesla website. To learn more about CUDA or download the latest version, visit the CUDA website. More NVIDIA news, company and product information, videos, images and other information is available at the NVIDIA newsroom. Follow us on Twitter at @NVIDIATesla.

About NVIDIA NVIDIA ( NASDAQ : NVDA ) awakened the world to computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Today, its processors power a broad range of products from smartphones to supercomputers. NVIDIA's mobile processors are used in cell phones, tablets and auto infotainment systems. PC gamers rely on GPUs to enjoy spectacularly immersive worlds. Professionals use them to create 3D graphics and visual effects in movies and to design everything from golf clubs to jumbo jets. And researchers utilize GPUs to advance the frontiers of science with high performance computing. The company has more than 5,000 patents issued, allowed or filed, including ones covering ideas essential to modern computing. For more information, see http://www.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the impact and benefits of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and the effects of the company's patents on modern computing are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended July 29, 2012. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

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New Gene Sequencer to Break $1,000 Cost Barrier With NVIDIA Tesla GPU Acceleration