The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the development of two new artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), both powered by AMD technology. One of these, named Lux, will be built under a new public-private partnership model designed to accelerate deployment and increase American competitiveness in scientific computing.
Lux, utilizing AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs, and advanced networking technology from AMD Pensando, is scheduled for deployment in early 2026. This system aims to expand DOE’s AI capabilities and support work on national priorities such as fusion and fission research, materials discovery, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and grid modernization.
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 added: “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 states that this new public-private partnership model will allow supercomputers like Lux to be deployed much faster than traditional models—reducing timelines from years to months—by enabling co-investment from both government and industry partners.
A second supercomputer project called Discovery is planned under DOE's traditional procurement process. Expected to arrive in 2028 at ORNL, Discovery will use HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 systems powered by next-generation AMD EPYC “Venice” processors and AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs. The system is anticipated to significantly surpass Frontier—the world’s second largest supercomputer—in performance.
HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri commented: “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 and innovation with Discovery and Lux.”
Stephen Streiffer, Director at ORNL stated: “The Discovery system will drive scientific innovation faster and farther than ever before. Oak Ridge’s leadership in supercomputing has transformed how researchers solve problems. 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.”
DOE reports that these projects represent over $1 billion in combined public-private investment aimed at enhancing secure data movement across sites while integrating modeling with experimentation for rapid solutions on national priorities.
