Department of Energy Awards 38 Million Node-Hours of Computing Time to Support Cutting-Edge Research
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science today announced that it will award over 38 million node-hours to 56 scientific projects under the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) program. The projects will use DOE supercomputers to solve problems that would otherwise be impossible using experimental approaches alone. The selected projects span many applications, ranging from advancing nuclear fusion to developing foundational models for AI.
The ALCC allocates researchers time on DOE’s world-leading supercomputers to advance U.S. leadership in science and technology simulations. Because these facilities are unique, receiving computation time on these machines is highly competitive. The 2025 allocations provide time on supercomputers such as Frontier at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), Aurora and Polaris at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and Perlmutter at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). These resources represent some of the fastest computers in the world. Frontier ranks #2 and Aurora ranks #3 on the Top500 global list of most powerful computers. These resources are capable of calculating over a billion-billion calculations per second, which is the equivalent of every person on Earth doing one arithmetic calculation per second non-stop for four years, and will allow researchers to make discoveries and scientific breakthroughs far beyond those possible with traditional computers.
“Department of Energy supercomputers provide the cutting-edge computational capabilities that advance U.S. scientific leadership. Our supercomputers enable the exploration of complex scientific problems and the development of new AI applications that speed the time to discovery,” said Ceren Susut, the Associate Director of DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. “The ALCC awards are just one example of how the DOE’s investments in supercomputing benefit researchers all across our nation to advance our nation’s scientific competitiveness.”
ALCC focuses on projects with an emphasis on high-risk, high-payoff projects in areas relevant to the DOE mission or that broaden the community of researchers who use DOE’s advanced computing resources. For the 2025 awards, DOE selected projects based at 14 unique universities, 10 laboratories, and 8 industry partners.
These projects span a wide range of research areas addressing national challenges, such as:
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Energy: The development of AI and deep learning prediction tools for fusion energy systems, the modeling of materials for energy storage, and the design of new semiconductors.
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Medicine: The development of deep learning for medical applications, the modeling of cancer screening strategies, and the development of AI for cancer image processing.
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Computational fluid dynamics: Simulations to enable optimized designs for next-generation turbomachinery with the potential to save airlines 130 million gallons of jet fuel annually.
Learn more about the 2025 ALCC awardees by visiting the ASCR website. The ALCC application period will re-open for the 2026-27 allocation cycle in Fall 2025.
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