AMD has entered a contract valued at $1 billion with the U.S. Department of Energy to create two supercomputers, named Lux and Discovery. This project will be executed in partnership with Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and both systems are to be located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Lux is anticipated to be operational by early 2026, while Discovery is expected to launch in 2029.
These new supercomputers will build upon the groundwork established by the Frontier supercomputer, which is also situated at ORNL and was previously recognized as the fastest in the world before the El Capitan supercomputer was introduced at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory last year. AMD has prior experience collaborating with the U.S. government on similar projects, having played a role in the development of these cutting-edge technologies.
A press release detailing the arrangement highlights Lux as the nation’s first “dedicated AI Factory” focused on science, energy, and national security. It is engineered specifically to train, fine-tune, and deploy AI foundation models, potentially increasing the pace of discovery and innovation in various scientific fields. Lux is designed with advanced architecture to support data-intensive and model-centric workloads.
Conversely, Discovery is designed with a “Bandwidth Everywhere” approach, which aims to enhance both performance and energy efficiency relative to the Frontier supercomputer. This supercomputer is expected to support diverse scientific research areas, including energy, biology, advanced materials, and national security. It is set to aid in the development of next-generation reactors, batteries, catalysts, semiconductors, and other crucial materials.
What implications might this partnership have for future scientific research and technological progress?
Source: https://www.theverge.com/news/807483/amd-department-of-energy-announce-1-billion-ai-supercomputer-partnership