AMD, Department of Energy announce $1 billion AI supercomputer partnership

AMD has sealed a $1 cardinal woody with the US Department of Energy to make 2 supercomputers, Lux and Discovery, successful collaboration with Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Both supercomputers volition unrecorded astatine Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) successful Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Lux is slated to travel online reasonably soon successful aboriginal 2026, with Discovery pursuing successful 2029. 

Both physique connected the enactment that went into the Frontier supercomputer, which is besides housed astatine ORNL and was the fastest successful the satellite until El Capitan came online past twelvemonth astatine Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. AMD besides helped make those supercomputers, truthful this isn’t its archetypal clip moving with the US authorities connected a task similar this. 

A press release announcing the concern describes Lux arsenic an “AI Factory,” stating:

Lux astatine ORNL is the nation’s archetypal dedicated AI Factory for science, energy, and nationalist security—purpose-built to train, fine-tune, and deploy AI instauration models that volition accelerate find and engineering innovation. Lux is designed to accelerate AI-driven subject done its precocious architecture, optimized for data-intensive and model-centric workloads.

Meanwhile, Discovery is described arsenic having a “Bandwidth Everywhere” plan that improves connected the show and vigor ratio the Frontier supercomputer offers, delivering much computing output astatine a akin cost. That processing powerfulness volition enactment technological probe successful a assortment of areas, arsenic the property merchandise explains:

Discovery volition thrust breakthroughs successful energy, biology, precocious materials, nationalist security, and manufacturing innovation. It volition assistance plan next-generation reactors, batteries, catalysts, semiconductors, and captious materials.