First Exascale Computer of its Kind is Coming to the U.S. in 2021

The Department of Energy, in conjunction with the Intel Corporation recently announced that it will be releasing the first exascale supercomputer with a performance of one exaFLOP in the U.S. in 2021. The computer will be built at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, and will be called “Aurora” and is being praised as another means by which the U.S. is asserting its position as a global scientific leader.

One exaFLOP of performance is the equivalent of one “quintillion” floating point computations per second. This operating capacity will provide researchers with computing capabilities they did not previously possess, including the ability to develop extreme-scale cosmological simulations, identify new approaches for drug response prediction, as well as discover materials for the creation of more efficient organic solar cells. The Aurora system will foster new scientific innovation and usher in new technological capabilities, furthering the United States’ scientific leadership position globally.

“Achieving Exascale is imperative not only to better the scientific community, but also to better the lives of everyday Americans,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “Aurora and the next-generation of Exascale supercomputers will apply HPC and AI technologies to areas such as cancer research, climate modeling, and veterans’ health treatments. The innovative advancements that will be made with Exascale will have an incredibly significant impact on our society.”

The new Aurora supercomputer will be built with Intel technologies that have been designed specifically for the convergence of artificial intelligence and high performance computing at extreme computing scale.

For more information about the Argonne National Laboratory, click here: http://www.anl.gov/