The Pentagon just brought out a new supercomputer to support national security in the area of biodefense capabilities for the United States. The advanced supercomputer is installed in California at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and is a joint project between the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
It will be among the world’s most powerful computing systems, sharing the architecture with LLNL’s future exascale supercomputer, El Capitan. This marvelous technology, powered by AMD MI300A APUs, will transform the way the U.S. approaches biological threats.
It is this transformative nature of this power that Darryl Colvin, joint program executive officer for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense, has emphasized. He said that this system would be used to develop countermeasures in only days—if not hours—in contrast to the legacy system, ” he continued.
It will be used for running large-scale simulations, and AI modeling on threat classification to better military and civilian defense. A proximity integration of a rapid response laboratory is expected to further accelerate medical countermeasure development. The facility, staffed with automated robots and machinery, will enhance the front-end processes of drug discovery through protein re-engineering and countermeasure candidates.
Jim Brase, LLNL’s deputy associate director for computing, emphasized the broad national capability of this system. He said that the goal is a cradle-to-grave defense—something that is inside, evaluating and mitigating any potential biological threat in minutes.
The DoD and NNSA ensured that this supercomputing capability is available to other U.S. government agencies, international allies, academia, and industry. In this manner, the agency highlights the collaborative nature of solving national security problems using high-performance computing and interagency cooperation.
Ian Watson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Chemical and Biological Defense, reiterated the DoD’s commitment to the delivery of best-in-class defensive capabilities. He stated that this new system shows the Department’s commitment to making sure the Total Force can deter or prevail against advanced chemical and biological threats.
Janis Parenti, NNSA Livermore Field Office Manager, applauded the collaboration. “The combination of subject matter expertise from DoD, NNSA, and LLNL will help drive cutting-edge science to improve the nation’s ability in biodefense.”
LLNL Deputy Director Pat Falcone perhaps summed best: integrating exquisite computation and precision instrumentation into the biodefense fight is at the heart of their mission.
Tied into this supercomputer would be a rapid response laboratory that would monumentally prove instrumental in protecting national security and public health from the ever-changing landscape of the biological threats that continue to plague the U.S.