OAK RIDGE, Tenn — In 2022, Oak Ridge National Laboratory unveiled what was then the world's fastest supercomputer, Frontier. Soon, that title may be given to another piece of technology. The U.S. Department of Energy has named Frontier's successor — Discovery.
The new supercomputer will also be located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Matt Sieger, the project director, said Discovery will be able to do everything Frontier can and more.
"Everything from simulating the origin of the universe, to cancer therapies, to new drugs, to new materials, to energy efficiency improvements and jet engines," Sieger said.
He said the supercomputer will tie together research facilities and give scientists more capability to use and develop artificial intelligence technology in their research, as well as more modeling capabilities and simulations to work on their experiments.
Discovery is also expected to be more energy efficient compared to Frontier. It will also connect to the Department of Energy's facilities through the Integrated Research Infrastructure initiative, combining tools and scientific facilities to give researchers more power with their work. Sieger said a supercomputer can only live up to six years. That's why researchers are racing against the clock to build Discovery.
When Frontier debuted it broke records, but Sieger said the same might not be possible for Discovery.
"Moore's law, right? We used to take it for granted that every five years, you would buy a new computer and it would be five or 10 times more powerful than your previous computer. Well, that's slowing down," Sieger said.
He said scientists are looking to balance speed, networking and memory capabilities. However, that doesn't mean Discovery won't be fast. Frontier can perform one quintillion calculations in a second. Discovery will be even faster.
"You're generating petabytes and petabytes of data. That's a tremendous amount of data. No human being can go through all that data and understand what's in it. It would take you hundreds of years," he said.
The money for Discovery comes from the federal government. Frontier cost $600 million. Sieger said he couldn't give information about the budget for Discovery, but said everyone will benefit from it. Bids to help build it opened on July 19.
"Every technology that's in your cell phone, every technology that's in the modern car, started out as a science research project many years ago. That's where it comes from. And so, all the work that's being done on Frontier and will be done on Discovery leads to scientific advances and breakthroughs that affect us in every aspect of our lives. From technology to medicine, to health, to security, to energy efficiency," Sieger said.
Discovery is expected to be in Oak Ridge by early 2028.
