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The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is reinforcing its leadership in computational science with two new HPE-built systems. The next-generation exascale supercomputer, "Discovery," and the dedicated AI cluster, "Lux," are designed to propel breakthroughs in fields from medicine to energy. This initiative marks a significant step in advancing American innovation and national security in the converged era of AI and high-performance computing (HPC).
HPE will build two new systems for Oak Ridge National Laboratory: the "Discovery" exascale supercomputer and the "Lux" AI cluster.
Discovery is the successor to the Frontier system and is expected to increase application productivity by up to 10x.
It will feature the new HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 platform and K3000 storage with embedded DAOS.
The Lux system will serve as a sovereign, multi-tenant AI factory for training and inference.
Both systems leverage next-generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Instinct GPUs.
This partnership aims to accelerate scientific discovery and strengthen U.S. leadership in AI and supercomputing.
This project is a direct continuation of the public-private partnership that produced Frontier, the world's first exascale supercomputer. The new systems are central to the DOE's mission to maintain U.S. leadership in critical computing technologies. Discovery will push the boundaries of exascale capabilities, while Lux addresses the growing demand for dedicated, scalable AI resources, providing researchers with a cloud-like platform for advanced machine learning.
Discovery will be based on the newly unveiled HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 platform, a unified architecture designed for the converged AI and HPC era. It will be augmented by the HPE Cray Supercomputing Storage Systems K3000, the industry's first factory-built storage system with embedded DAOS open-source software. This combination is engineered to drive unprecedented performance and productivity for the lab's modeling, simulation, and AI workloads, while also serving as a testbed for quantum computing research.
The HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 platform integrates state-of-the-art capabilities across compute, networking, and storage. Discovery will leverage next-generation AMD EPYC "Venice" CPUs and AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs within a fully liquid-cooled infrastructure for optimal efficiency. The system will utilize the high-performance HPE Slingshot interconnect and the new DAOS-based K3000 storage, which is expected to deliver 300% more IOPS per rack compared to its predecessor, Frontier, dramatically accelerating data-intensive AI applications.
The Lux system is designed as a dedicated AI resource to broaden researcher access. Based on the direct liquid-cooled HPE ProLiant Compute XD685 and featuring AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, Lux will function as a flexible, multi-tenant cloud platform. Its purpose is to support the DOE's initiatives in AI and machine learning by providing a sovereign environment specifically resourced for training and inference at scale.
The announcement was underscored by strong support from the leadership of all involved organizations. Antonio Neri, president and CEO at HPE, stated, “We are proud to build on that leadership innovation and strong public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, ORNL and AMD, to build Discovery and Lux, accelerating the next era of scientific discovery and AI innovation.” Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD, added, “Together with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we are advancing the next generation of AI systems with Discovery and Lux—empowering researchers to accelerate innovation and strengthen America’s leadership in science and technology.”
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