AMD Sets 64-Bit Gold Standard For Industrial Light & Magic And Lucasarts New Presidio Facility

Press Release - Digital artists break free at Lucasfilm Ltd.’s new Letterman Digital Arts Center using AMD64 technology inside the entertainment industry’s largest and most powerful computing network

At Siggraph in Los Angeles yesterday, AMD announced that the digital backbone of the new 23-acre Letterman Digital Arts Center campus of Lucasfilm Ltd. is being powered by AMD64 processor technology.

At the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Presidio, Lucasfilm Ltd. is relocating Industrial Light & Magic, the world’s leading visual effects house, and LucasArts, the producer of some of the year’s top selling game titles to the new Letterman Digital Arts Center. Within the Letterman Digital Arts Center is a massive AMD64-based data center housing a render farm, file servers and storage systems, allowing computers to process data 24 hours a day, seven days a week to create astounding visual images for movies and games. The data center is capable of processing more than 150 terabytes of data per day.

The AMD64-based computer network at the Letterman Digital Arts Center takes advantage of the superior architecture and high 32- and 64-bit performance of the AMD Opteron™ processor. At the center, digital artists have the capability similar to working on a live movie set, only “virtually” and can collaborate internally throughout the campus as well as with movie and game creators anywhere in the world.

“There is a big expectation from our clients who come to us when they think they have something that can’t be done,” said Cliff Plumer, chief technology officer at Lucasfilm. “We chose AMD64 technology because it was the only enterprise-class solution with an easy migration path to 64-bit computing that allows our digital artists to break free from the creative limitations of traditional technology and continue advancing digital imagery to unprecedented heights.”