Accelerating Scientific Discoveries with New AI Supercomputers

Historic Partnership from the U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, NVIDIA, and Oracle announced a significant public-private partnership aimed at accelerating scientific discovery. This partnership will deliver the Department of Energy's largest artificial intelligence supercomputer to date. Argonne will also establish three new artificial intelligence computing systems as part of an existing collaboration with NVIDIA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and World Wide Technology.

The announced partnership aligns with President Donald Trump's executive order on Accelerating Federal Data Center Infrastructure. The Solstice system will be equipped with 100,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and will become the largest artificial intelligence supercomputer in the Department of Energy laboratory complex. The other system, named Equinox, will contain 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and construction will begin immediately.

These artificial intelligence systems will seamlessly connect with the Department of Energy’s extensive scientific instrumentation and data asset network, providing solutions to the nation’s most pressing challenges in energy, security, and exploratory sciences.

Another agreed aspect of the partnership includes Oracle providing access to artificial intelligence computing resources to the Department of Energy using a combination of NVIDIA Hopper and Blackwell architectures. Argonne and scientists across the country will gain access to new artificial intelligence capabilities to maintain technological leadership in energy and scientific applications.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated, “Winning the AI race requires new and creative partnerships that bring together the brightest minds and the industries American technology can offer.” It was emphasized that the partnership would create significant momentum for scientific and technological innovation.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang remarked, “Artificial intelligence is the most powerful technology of our time, and science is the greatest frontier of discovery,” indicating that they are building an artificial intelligence factory in collaboration with the Department of Energy and Oracle.

These new supercomputer systems are seen as an important step toward enhancing the country’s leadership in artificial intelligence and scientific research. Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk stated, “Our partnership with the Department of Energy will provide high-performance artificial intelligence capabilities to respond to the nation’s most complex challenges.”

Paul Kearns, Director of Argonne National Laboratory, said, “The Equinox and Solstice systems are designed to accelerate powerful scientific artificial intelligence workflows.” These systems will focus on solving the most urgent problems through scientific discovery.

According to statements by NVIDIA, the artificial intelligence systems planned for development at Argonne are critical for processing the most complex data in modern science and accelerating scientific discovery processes. The speed achieved in data flow with the new systems will significantly shorten research and discovery phases.