The Department of Energy\u2019s newest supercomputer will be capable of conducting 1.5 quintillion calculations per second, making it more powerful than the world\u2019s current second most powerful supercomputer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department announced Aug. 13 that it had inked a $600 million deal with Cray Inc. to build its third exascale-class supercomputer. Among other responsibilities, the Energy Department is charged with maintaining the United States\u2019 stockpile of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dubbed \u201cEl Capitan,\u201d the supercomputer is part of the Exascale Computing Project, a DOE effort to increase computing power so that the department can run highly advanced simulations and modelling of the United States\u2019 nuclear arsenal. These simulations help alleviate the need for underground testing. El Capitan is expected to be used by the department\u2019s National Nuclear Security Administration\u2019s weapons design laboratories to run 3D simulations that are too difficult for today\u2019s state-of-the-art supercomputers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNNSA is modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise to face 21st century threats,\u201d said Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the NNSA administrator and the department\u2019s under secretary for nuclear security, said in a release. \u201cEl Capitan will allow us to be more responsive, innovative, and forward-thinking when it comes to maintaining a nuclear deterrent that is second to none in a rapidly-evolving threat environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Capitan will be located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The department\u2019s two other supercomputers, Aurora and Frontier, are located at Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, respectively. All three supercomputers are being built by Cray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Capitan is expected to be delivered in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dubbed El Capitan, the supercomputer will be used by the Department of Energy\u2019s National Nuclear Security Administration\u2019s weapons design laboratories to run 3D simulations that are too difficult for today\u2019s state-of-the-art supercomputers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":40152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,106,29,16,35,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3143],"class_list":["post-25538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-battlefield-tech","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-it-networks","category-c2-comms-battlefield-tech","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"L6ELV753WVBFJO44WWVCWEDWOI","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2019\/08\/14\/new-supercomputer-will-help-prevent-nuclear-weapon-testing\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n