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Uniting to Build Solutions

Two ORNL-led computing teams were recognized with Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Awards, presented by Secretary Jennifer Granholm on January 8, 2025, at the DOE Forrestal building. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm delivered the Secretary’s Honor Awards on January 8, 2025. Credit: Donica Payne, DOE “The dedicated teams we are…
Katie Bethea
January 17, 2025
FeaturedIndustryScience

A Cleaner Vision

Anyone who’s ever lathered up knows the dilemma. The same qualities that make surfactants — the chemical compounds in soaps, shampoos and detergents that penetrate grease, dissolve stains and make those satisfying suds in the shower — so effective as cleaners can also act as irritants. When splashed in the…
Matt Lakin
January 13, 2025
FeaturedScience

Reining in Runaway Electrons

At temperatures hotter than the sun, even a small disruption can interfere with a fusion reaction. Scientists planning for the operations of ITER, an international fusion plant now under assembly, needed to solve the problem of runaway electrons, negatively charged particles in the soup of matter in the plasma within…
Matt Lakin
January 7, 2025
birds eye view of earth overlayed with wavy lines arstically representing gravity wavesFeaturedScience

Decoding Atmospheric Effects of Gravity Waves

Researchers at Stanford University, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, or ECMWF, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory used the lab’s Summit supercomputer to better understand atmospheric gravity waves, which influence significant weather patterns that are difficult to forecast. First, the team conducted ultrahigh-resolution climate simulations using the ECMWF Integrated Forecast…
Jeremy Rumsey
December 23, 2024
FeaturedScience

The OLCF’s 2024 in Review

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…
Angela Gosnell
December 19, 2024
FeaturedScience

Summit Helps Veterans Affairs Connect Genetic Dots

To conduct a groundbreaking study of genetic data from more than half a million U.S. veterans, scientists needed tools of the kind found only at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "This particular study is probably the crown jewel of the field so far," said Ravi Madduri, a…
Matt Lakin
December 18, 2024
Light blue background with curved lines and the words SGCI HackathonFeaturedScience

ORNL Researchers Honored with Award for Best Event Report

A research collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and several partner institutions was honored with the Best Event Report award at the 2024 International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons and Game Creation Events. The eighth annual conference for researchers, educators, professionals and event organizers in high-performance…
Angela Gosnell
December 12, 2024
FeaturedScience

Summit’s Bonus Year of Scientific Achievement

Leadership-class supercomputers dedicated to open science are not built to last forever. In fact, they have a limited lifespan by design. No matter how powerful they may be on launch day, advancements in computing technology and changing computing needs will push them closer to obsolescence with each passing year until…
Coury Turczyn
December 3, 2024
FeaturedOLCF HistoryScienceTechnology

Frontier Supercomputer Hits New Highs in Third Year of Exascale

Two-and-a-half years after breaking the exascale barrier, the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory continues to set new standards for its computing speed and performance. The HPE Cray EX supercomputing system reported new highs for problem-solving speeds this week, updated for the TOP500 announcement at the International Conference…
Matt Lakin
November 18, 2024
FeaturedTechnology

DOE’s Quantum Computing User Program releases Request for Information to Gather Input on Quantum Computing Access

The Department of Energy’s Quantum Computing User Program, or QCUP, at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, or OLCF, enables scientific discovery and technological innovation by providing a diverse community of scientific researchers access to quantum computing resources. This competitive merit-based access program partners with quantum computing vendors to provide…
Katie Bethea
November 15, 2024
FeaturedScience

Protein Design on Demand

Researchers used the world’s fastest supercomputer to train an artificial intelligence model to draw up blueprints for the building blocks of life. The study earned the multi-institutional team a finalist nomination for the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize, which honors innovation in applying high-performance computing to applications in science,…
Matt Lakin
November 14, 2024
DNA researchFeaturedScience

Bigger, Faster, Smarter Genetics Research

A team of researchers used the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a new methodology for conducting a genome-wide association study, or GWAS, to earn a finalist nomination for the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2024 Gordon Bell Prize for outstanding achievement in high-performance computing,…
Coury Turczyn
November 1, 2024