Skip to main content

Visitor Information & Tours

Planning a trip to the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.

Virtual Tour of the OLCF

The NCCS and OLCF have opened the doors to part of the facility with a virtual tour. Created with imaging platform Matterport, the tour’s immersive 3D rendering of Summit’s computer center allows online visitors to explore the facility. “Walking” from the operations control room to the energy plant to the data center reveals more than 15,000 square feet in Building 5600 with an unprecedented amount of detail. Every room (and even hallways) on the tour are annotated with informative pop-ups that tell the stories of one of the nation’s leading supercomputing centers.

Take the virtual tour here: High-Performance Computing at ORNL: the National Center for Computational Sciences and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility

Visiting

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) welcome visitors to the Laboratory. It is very important, if you are not a DOE or DOE contractor employee, to arrange your visit to ORNL and the OLCF ahead of time.  If you’re not sure how to arrange your visit, contact your OLCF host or the ORNL Visitor Services ([email protected], 865.574.7199).

For more information, see the following pages:

In-Person Tours

Visitors to ORNL can requests a tour of the OLCF. The facility hosts on average 300 tours each year, giving members of Congress and other government officials, foreign guests, visiting researchers, and student and community groups an opportunity to observe the center’s world-class facilities in action.

Some notes on tours:

  • Hosted tours of our facility take place at the Frontier overlook, across from C101 in building 5600. This space is designed to accommodate groups and gives visitors a chance to hear about all of our computing resource while viewing the Frontier supercomputer. After the overview from our tour host, visitors will have the option to walk down the C corridor to the Summit overlook (we ask groups to be quiet in this working office area). The Summit overlook area is for viewing only and does not accommodate tour groups with a host, as it is an active working pathway for staff.
  • OLCF tours last from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the group’s interest and schedule. Groups have the option to walk down to the Summit overlook and view the Summit system after the host is done at the Titan overlook.
  • We can accommodate tour groups of 25 people or less. If your group is bigger than 25, we ask that you split the team in half. Half of the group can wait on Main St. for the host to finish or they can walk down to view Summit.
  • Photography is allowed at both the Frontier and Summit overlooks.
  • Advanced registration is required. Other restrictions apply as well.

For more information about visiting ORNL and taking part in a public tour, contact [email protected].

For specific information about OLCF tours, please contact [email protected].