The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the development of two new supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), both powered by AMD technology, as part of an initiative to boost American capabilities in scientific computing and artificial intelligence.
A key aspect of this announcement is the introduction of a new public-private partnership model. Under this framework, the Lux AI cluster will be deployed in early 2026 using AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs, and advanced networking technologies from AMD Pensando. The aim is to quickly expand DOE’s AI capacity and support work on national priorities such as fusion energy research, materials discovery, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and modernization of the power grid.
Lux is designed to provide a secure and efficient AI software stack that supports innovation and enhances U.S. competitiveness. According to U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright: “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. 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 commented: “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 DOE notes that this partnership model allows for co-investments from both government agencies and private companies like AMD and HPE. It aims to reduce deployment times for supercomputers from years down to months while enabling shared use of computing resources for mutual benefit.
Discovery—the second system announced—will be delivered through a traditional procurement process in 2028 as an HPE system powered by next-generation AMD processors including EPYC “Venice” chips alongside Instinct MI430X GPUs on an HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 platform. Its expected performance will surpass Frontier (currently located at ORNL), which is among the world’s fastest supercomputers.
HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri 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…”
Stephen Streiffer, Director at ORNL 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.”
Both systems are intended not only for advancing scientific research but also for strengthening data security across sites within DOE operations while integrating modeling with experimentation efforts.
The project represents more than $1 billion in combined investment from public funds alongside contributions from private sector partners.
