AMD’s AI chips to power supercomputers at US Energy Department lab
Lux is scheduled to enter service early next year using MI355X chips from the company
[WASHINGTON] Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is teaming up with the US Energy Department to develop a pair of supercomputers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory that will deploy the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips to seek breakthroughs in energy and scientific research.
Combined public and private investments in the supercomputers – dubbed Lux and Discovery – will total US$1 billion, the company said on Monday (Oct 27). Joining AMD in developing the new supercomputers at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge research lab are Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Oracle’s cloud infrastructure unit.
“This partnership should be a model of American innovation where government, academia and industry come together,” AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su told reporters in Washington at an event announcing the initiative.
One use for the supercomputers will be modelling nuclear reactors, Stephen Streiffer, Director of Oak Ridge National Lab, told reporters, adding that AI may soon speed up the nuclear licensing process. It can also be used to advance fusion energy and quantum computing technologies, as well as to simulate how diseases affect biological systems in a human.
The partnership is aimed at fulfilling part of the vision for federally backed research spelt out in the AI Action Plan released by the Trump administration in July. Su credited US President Donald Trump’s desire for American leadership in AI as a catalyst for the Oak Ridge projects.
Su said that Lux and Discovery will become two of the world’s most energy-efficient computing platforms, offering researchers from around the US the ability to share data for AI, as well as train and test AI models.
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“They are really commitments, commitments to scientific discovery, to open collaboration and to American leadership and the technologies that will shape our future,” Su said of the supercomputers.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who joined Su for the announcement, said he expected there will be more joint research efforts with commercial ventures in the area of AI.
“We are going to have dozens of partnerships with companies to build facilities at commercial speed driven by the time speed at which our commercial players can move,” Wright told reporters.
Lux is scheduled to enter service early next year using MI355X chips from AMD, while Discovery will rely on the company’s MI430X processors. Discovery is set to become the next flagship supercomputer at Oak Ridge when it’s ready in 2028. BLOOMBERG
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