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NCCS Director Arjun Shankar gives an update on the facility’s next high-performance computing system during the OLCF User Meeting on Sept. 10, 2024.   Credit: Kurt Weiss/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility welcomed users to an interactive meeting at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory from Sept. 10–11 for an opportunity to share achievements from the OLCF’s user programs and highlight requirements for the future.

Hard drive being pulled and put in recycle container.

The Summit supercomputer, once the world’s most powerful, is set to be decommissioned by the end of 2024 to make way for the next-generation supercomputer. Over the summer, crews began dismantling Summit’s Alpine storage system, shredding over 40,000 hard drives with the help of ShredPro Secure, a local East Tennessee business. This partnership not only reduced costs and sped up the process but also established a more efficient and secure method for decommissioning large-scale computing systems in the future.

ORNL’s convergent manufacturing platform, on display at IMTS 2024 in Chicago, Illinois, integrates multiple systems into one.

A new convergent manufacturing platform, developed in only five months at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is debuting at the International Manufacturing Technology Show, or IMTS, in Chicago, Sept. 9–12, 2024.

Team of four people seated in front of four people standing in the network operations center at EPB at Chattanooga.

For the first time, ORNL will run equipment developed at its research facilities on a commercially available quantum network at EPB Quantum Network powered by Qubitekk to help validate the technology's commercial viability.

Bryan Maldonado

As a mechanical engineer in building envelope materials research at ORNL, Bryan Maldonado sees opportunities to apply his scientific expertise virtually everywhere he goes, from coast to coast. As an expert in understanding how complex systems operate, he’s using machine learning methods to control the process and ultimately optimize performance. 

digital construction platform

A digital construction platform in development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is boosting the retrofitting of building envelopes and giving builders the tools to automate the process from design to installation with the assistance of a cable-driven robotic crane.

ORNL researchers demonstrated the use of drones equipped with cameras and other sensors to check power lines at an EPB of Chattanooga training center for electrical line workers.

Researchers at ORNL recently demonstrated an automated drone-inspection technology at EPB of Chattanooga that will allow utilities to more quickly and easily check remote power lines for malfunctions, catching problems before outages occur.

Weyl semimetal

At ORNL, a group of scientists used neutron scattering techniques to investigate a relatively new functional material called a Weyl semimetal. These Weyl fermions move very quickly in a material and can carry electrical charge at room temperature. Scientists think that Weyl semimetals, if used in future electronics, could allow electricity to flow more efficiently and enable more energy-efficient computers and other electronic devices.

Image with a grey and black backdrop - in front is a diamond with two circles coming out from it, showing the insides.

The world’s fastest supercomputer helped researchers simulate synthesizing a material harder and tougher than a diamond — or any other substance on Earth. The study used Frontier to predict the likeliest strategy to synthesize such a material, thought to exist so far only within the interiors of giant exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.

Green and blue background of a graphic image that says Honors and Awards

Two additive manufacturing researchers from ORNL received prestigious awards from national organizations. Amy Elliott and Nadim Hmeidat, who both work in the Manufacturing Science Division, were recognized recently for their early career accomplishments.