Genesis Mission

Two new computing systems at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Discovery and Lux – will advance the Genesis Mission, DOE's initiative to secure American leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) for science, energy, and national security. With these systems, ORNL will chart new pathways for AI-driven science, accelerating innovation and developing the American Science Cloud (AmSC), a secure, connected and integrated, science-optimized environment that links DOE’s computing and experimental facilities. These platforms will power a new era of discovery, linking powerful infrastructure with domain science to deliver solutions for national priorities.

Discovery is an HPE system powered by AMD processors and accelerators that will be delivered in 2028 with significantly greater performance than Frontier across every part of the system. The supercomputer will continue to advance discoveries via high-performance modeling and simulation integrated with AI, while charting the path to the convergence of high-performance computing (HPC), AI and quantum computing. Discovery continues ORNL’s and the United States’ proven record of HPC leadership. ORNL has deployed a total of seven flagship supercomputers, with each of the last four – Jaguar, Titan, Summit, and Frontier ranking as the world’s fastest system of its time. These leadership-class systems support scientists in achieving cutting-edge breakthroughs and have provided unprecedented computational science capabilities for the nation.

The Lux AI cluster, to be deployed at ORNL in 2026 under an innovative partnership with AMD, will expand DOE’s near-term AI capacity and accelerate progress on critical lighthouse problems identified in the Genesis Mission, including fusion, fission, materials, quantum, advanced manufacturing, and the grid. It marks the start of an ambitious scientific journey that draws on deep multi-domain expertise and unique data assets across the entire DOE laboratory system. Lux will employ AMD's cutting-edge GPUs to deliver a secure, open, and efficient AI software stack for U.S. innovation, supporting large-scale AI training and distributed inference.