Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp., world’s largest producer of semiconductors, supplied a Xeon 5600 series chip system to Russia’s state weather forecast center, letting it more than double computational capacity, according to the center’s management.

Capacity will increase to 57 trillion operations per second from the current 27 trillion by the end of the year, said Alexander Frolov, head of Roshydromet, Russia’s federal service of hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring, which manages the center.

The upgrade’s cost is at least 15 million rubles ($500,000) and the move will help the center improve the accuracy of forecasts, Frolov said at a news conference. It will let scientists forecast further ahead and model the climate and will help them specify tender requirements for purchases of equipment to upgrade weather observation stations, he said.

“We hope our cooperation with Roshydromet will continue,” said Julia Klebanova, sales director for Intel’s Russian branch.

--Editors: Robert Valpuesta, Tom Lavell.

To contact the reporter on this story: Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net