High-performance computing pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in 2024, driving advancements across a range of disciplines. Partnerships with top academic, industrial and government institutions led to major contributions in fields such as quantum molecular mechanics and aviation. The year also saw groundbreaking research honored at leading conferences, underscoring the lasting impact of these innovations on the future of science. As 2025 approaches, the momentum from this outstanding year sets the stage for even greater discoveries and technological progress.
Empowering Artificial Intelligence
Researchers used ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer to train an artificial intelligence model that designs proteins. The team hopes to use this AI-driven approach to design proteins for applications such as cancer treatments, vaccines, and bioremediation. Their work, which leverages the computational power of multiple exascale supercomputers, marks a significant step toward using AI to revolutionize the design of life-saving medical solutions.
Landing Humans on Mars
NASA used advanced simulations on ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer to explore new technologies for landing humans on Mars. The arrival of the exascale Frontier supercomputer enabled the team to run the most detailed and extensive simulations yet, including a successful autonomous flight test that will be crucial for ensuring a safe landing on Mars. The project’s success highlights the role of supercomputing in overcoming the challenges of landing large, human-carrying spacecraft on Mars.
Defining the Future of HPC
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science launched a $23 million research and development initiative called New Frontiers, aimed at advancing technologies for next-generation supercomputers. The program will focus on improving energy efficiency and addressing critical challenges in HPC such as advanced memory, interconnects, and programmability. As the demand for exascale computing grows, especially with the rise of AI, this effort will support the development of new hardware, software, and algorithms to maintain leadership in science and national security.
Building a Better Diamond
Using ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer, researchers simulated the creation of BC8, a material harder and tougher than diamond, which is theorized to exist in the interiors of giant exoplanets. This breakthrough research leveraged Frontier’s exascale capabilities to simulate the behavior of more than a billion carbon atoms under extreme pressures and temperatures, conditions that traditional supercomputers couldn’t handle. The research represents a significant step toward understanding and possibly synthesizing this superhard material, with Frontier providing the computational power necessary for these unprecedented simulations.
Accelerating Aviation Design
Whisper Aero, a start-up based in Crossville, Tennessee, is developing revolutionary electric propulsion technology for aviation, including a quieter and more efficient electric ducted fan (EDF) system. Using ORNL’s Summit supercomputer, Whisper Aero has accelerated the design of its Whisper Jet, a nine-passenger electric airplane that integrates 20-30 small, quiet EDFs into the wings for a cleaner, quieter flight experience. Summit’s computational power enabled the team to run advanced simulations on aircraft and drone designs, drastically speeding up development cycles, optimizing aerodynamics, and validating design choices.
Breaking Benchmarks
ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer surpassed expectations by simulating a system of nearly half a trillion atoms, the largest system ever modeled. This groundbreaking achievement, using Frontier’s immense computational power, promises to open new frontiers in scientific discovery, particularly in simulating complex biological systems at the atomic level. In a test case using water molecules, Frontier successfully handled more than 155 billion molecules, or 466 billion atoms, revealing the potential to model detailed sub-cellular structures and the fundamental components of life. Researchers now envision using this capability to simulate minimal cells, offering insights into biological processes and emergent phenomena.
Uniting HPC and Quantum Computing
A study by ORNL scientists explores strategies for integrating quantum computing with classical HPC systems to enhance scientific research. The research presents a framework for leveraging quantum approaches to address complex scientific problems that classical computers struggle with, such as modeling interactions at the atomic level. The study emphasizes the importance of creating hybrid systems, similar to the integration of GPUs and CPUs in current supercomputers, but notes that the technology to seamlessly combine quantum and classical processors is still in development. The goal is to create a hybrid architecture that will allow scientists to harness the strengths of both computing paradigms for more efficient and powerful simulations.
Decommissioning HPSS
After decades of service, the OLCF’s High Performance Storage System will be decommissioned in early 2025, marking the end of an era for OLCF users. The transition is to a new, more efficient data storage system called Kronos, which boasts a massive 134 petabytes of storage and improved speed, resilience, and ease of use. Kronos provides dual copies of all files—one on disk and another on tape for disaster recovery — ensuring robust data protection with the performance of disk storage. HPSS became read-only in August 2024 and officially will be decommissioned by January 2025.
Saying Goodbye to Summit
In 2023, despite plans to shut down the IBM Power System AC922 Summit supercomputer after five years of service, the OLCF extended Summit’s life for an additional year. At the time, Summit remained the fourth-fastest supercomputer in the U.S. and ranked among the top 10 worldwide. This extension led to the launch of the SummitPLUS allocation program, in which provided more than 19 million hours of compute time to 108 research projects across academia, government and industry, supporting critical scientific studies from January through October 2024. Summit’s extended operation allowed researchers to continue benefiting from its powerful computing capabilities, marking a productive final year before its shutdown on Nov. 15, 2024.
✨ Goodbye, Summit!
After six years of production service providing over 200 million node hours to researchers around the world, @ORNL's Summit #supercomputer was decommissioned on Friday. pic.twitter.com/VIngoIezJS
— OLCF (@OLCFGOV) November 19, 2024
Winning the Gordon Bell Prize
In 2024, two groundbreaking research teams were honored at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis for their extraordinary achievements using the Frontier supercomputer.
The first team, led by the University of Melbourne, won the Gordon Bell Prize for their unprecedented quantum molecular dynamics simulation, which calculated a system with over 2 million correlated electrons — 1,000 times larger and faster than any previous simulation.
The second team, from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, was awarded the Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modeling for developing a highly scalable climate emulator that offers radically enhanced resolution while minimizing the storage demands of traditional climate models.
Both achievements underscore the transformative power of exascale computing, with Frontier playing a central role in pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery.
Simulating the Universe
In early November, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory achieved a monumental breakthrough in astrophysical simulations by running the largest and most complex cosmological hydrodynamics simulation ever conducted, using ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer. This groundbreaking simulation, which models both atomic and dark matter simultaneously, sets a new benchmark for simulating the universe at the scale of large telescope surveys. The simulation included detailed physical realism, accounting for gravity, hot gas, star and galaxy formation, and black holes — ushering in a new era of computational cosmology.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
