Oak Ridge National Laboratory's main campus
Chuck FleischmannU.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz today announced the government has awarded $325 million to build two next-generation massive supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The super computers will be five to seven times more powerful than today's fastest machines and are expected to provide major boosts to vital U.S. research leadership in basic science, defense and other areas, officials said.
U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., hailed the announcement, calling it "another great day for Oak Ridge.
"With Secretary Moniz's announcement of the next generation exascale computing will be coming to East Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is once again in position to lead the world in supercomputing," Fleischmann said in a statement.
The congressman, who represents Oak Ridge, said high performance computing "is the foundation for virtually all science and advances our business position in the world, helping create the family wage jobs we need."
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Fleischmann said, "I will work with my colleagues to ensure this new computing system is fully supported."
In a Department of Energy news release, Moniz said "high-performance computing is an essential component of the science and technology portfolio required to maintain U.S. competitiveness and ensure our economic and national security."
He said the departments and its National Laboratories "have always been at the forefront of [high performance computing] and we expect that critical supercomputing investments like [these] will again lead to transformational advancements in basic science, national defense, environmental and energy research that rely on simulations of complex physical systems and analysis of massive amounts of data."
The funding will go to IBM, Nvidia and other firms which are building the giant supercomputers.