The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to deploy two new artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), aiming to enhance the nation’s capabilities in scientific computing and innovation. One of these systems, named Lux, will be built through a new public-private partnership model that seeks to speed up deployment timelines.
Lux will use AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs, and advanced networking technology from AMD Pensando. The DOE expects Lux to be operational in early 2026 and serve as a platform for advancing research in areas such as fusion energy, materials discovery, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and grid modernization.
According to the DOE, this new partnership approach allows both the government and private sector companies to co-invest in infrastructure and share computing resources. The goal is to reduce the time required to bring supercomputing systems online from years to months.
“Winning the AI race requires new and creative partnerships that will bring together the brightest minds and industries American technology and science has to offer,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “That’s why the Trump administration is announcing the first example of a new commonsense approach to computing partnerships with Lux. We are also announcing, as part of a competitive procurement process, Discovery. Working with AMD and HPE, we’re bringing new capacity online faster than ever before, turning shared innovation into national strength, and proving that America leads when private-public partners build together.”
AMD chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su stated: “We are proud and honored to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy and Secretary Wright to accelerate America’s AI compute infrastructure. This partnership exemplifies public-private collaboration at its best. With Discovery and Lux, we are delivering leadership compute systems that combine performance and energy efficiency to advance America’s research priorities and strengthen U.S. leadership in AI, energy, and national security.”
The second system announced by DOE is called Discovery—a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) system powered by next-generation AMD processors—that is expected in 2028. Discovery will utilize HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 hardware with upcoming AMD EPYC “Venice” processors alongside AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs.
Discovery is designed for high-performance computing tasks combining traditional computation with AI methods and quantum technologies. Its increased performance aims to allow researchers to analyze data more quickly than before—potentially reducing scientific discovery cycles from years down to weeks—and tackle complex problems across fields like medicine, cybersecurity, energy development, and manufacturing.
Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE said: “We are proud to build on our strong U.S. public-private partnership with the Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and AMD that first began when we debuted the Frontier exascale supercomputer and broke a significant computing speed barrier… Together, we will continue to strengthen U.S. national leadership in the era of AI and accelerate scientific breakthroughs and innovation with Discovery and Lux.”
Stephen Streiffer, ORNL Laboratory Director added: “The Discovery system will drive scientific innovation faster and farther than ever before… With Discovery and Lux, we’re accelerating the pace of Gold Standard Science at a scale that secures America’s leadership in an increasingly competitive world.”
DOE reports more than $1 billion has been invested publicly or privately into these projects so far.
