DOE issues RFP for the successor to the world’s fastest supercomputer
The future system, to be called Discovery, will be designed to offer new computational capabilities over Frontier.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a request for proposals (RFPs) last week to advance its leadership in high-performance computing, inviting vendors to submit their plans for a successor to Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) exascale (a quintillion or more calculations per second) supercomputer, Frontier.
The future system, to be called Discovery, will be designed to offer new computational capabilities over Frontier, currently the fastest supercomputer in the world at 1.206 exaflops on the High-Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. The target for Discovery’s delivery to the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) is 2027 or early 2028. The OLCF is a DOE Office of Science user facility at ORNL and home of Frontier.
The RFP for Discovery sets a wide range of goals for the next-generation system, such as advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, improved energy efficiency, full-system modeling and simulation, and seamless interoperability with other DOE facilities through the Integrated Research Infrastructure initiative, which seeks to combine research tools and scientific facilities.
Unlike previous RFPs issued by the OLCF, the request does not cite a specific speedup goal over its predecessor, but the facility expects Discovery to deliver three to five times more computational throughput for benchmarks and scientific applications than Frontier.
“This project is exciting because we will be building something even more capable than Frontier, with technologies that will push the edge of what’s possible,” said ORNL’s Matt Sieger, the OLCF’s Project Director for Discovery.
The OLCF has a long legacy in delivering world-leading supercomputers on scope, budget, and schedule. Since 2005, the OLCF has deployed the supercomputers Jaguar, Titan, Summit, and Frontier, each the world’s fastest computer in its time. Additionally, in the past decade, the OLCF has improved the facility’s computational power by a factor of 500 while suppressing energy consumption, which increased only by a factor of 4. Energy-efficient computing will continue to be a priority for the OLCF.
Vendors will have until 5 p.m. EDT on August 30, 2024, to submit their proposals for Discovery. The RFP is being managed by UT-Battelle LLC, which is the managing contractor for ORNL.
Like what you've read?
Forward to a friend!