The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first attempt at building a supercomputer. The first 7030 was delivered to Los Alamos in 1961.
Originally priced at $13.5 million, its failure to meet its aggressive performance estimates forced the price to be dropped to only $7.78 million and its withdrawal from sales to customers beyond those having already signed contracts for delivery. Even though the 7030 was much slower than expected, the 7030 was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until 1964!
In May, 1955 IBM lost a bid on a high-performance decimal computer system for the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California. Univac the dominant computer manufacturer at the time, had won the contract for LARC, the Livermore Automatic Research Computer.
Project Stretch was formally initiated in January, 1956.
In November, 1956 IBM won the contract for a binary computer with the aggressive performance goal of a "speed at least 100 to 200 times the IBM 704" to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Delivery was slated for 1960.