News and Events

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: 

• 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. 
• Medicine: The development of deep learning for medical applications, the modeling of cancer screening strategies, and the development of AI for cancer image processing.
• 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.

On May 21 and 22, signal and image science experts from across LLNL, academia and industry gathered at the UC Livermore Collaboration Center (UCLCC) for the 29th annual Center for Advanced Signal and Image Sciences (CASIS) workshop. One of the longest-running events of its kind at the Lab, the CASIS workshop connects the signal and image sciences community to share research and resources, network and spark collaborations.

Signal and image sciences are a diverse and interdisciplinary field dedicated to processing, generating, analyzing and interpreting signals and images. This field is integral to the Lab’s key missions through activities like extracting data from National Ignition Facility (NIF) experiments, enhancing remote sensing capabilities for security applications, developing robust AI platforms for mission-critical decision-making and enabling quantum-computing systems.

“Given the breadth of applications, CASIS is uniquely positioned to provide a window into the Lab and showcase a large number of research areas,” said Ruben Glatt, CASIS director and AI Research Group leader in the Computational Engineering Division. “The workshop makes the Lab more approachable to the broader research community by helping identify overlapping interests and opportunities for collaboration.”

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease. While there is currently no cure, efforts are underway to change that — and to establish better treatments.

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the University of California (UC) system are addressing ALS challenges and opportunities at scale by collaborating across disciplines to accelerate research and development. Toward this end, the UC Livermore Collaboration Center hosted the second annual UC ALS Workshop on May 15–16.

The University of California has awarded $18 million in multicampus research grants, in partnership with UC-managed national laboratories, to advance the frontiers of artificial intelligence in areas of strategic importance and technological innovation.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Science at Scale initiative provides three grants of $6 million over three years to develop new AI approaches in genomics, quantum materials discovery and geothermal energy. The winning teams are composed of UC faculty across a wide range of disciplines, representing nearly every UC campus. This research is funded by fee income the university receives for managing the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. 

Centers focus on basic research to transform the energy efficiency of microelectronics and create microelectronics for extreme environments

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $179 million in funding for three Microelectronics Science Research Centers (MSRCs). These three MSRCs will perform basic research in microelectronics materials, device and system design, and manufacturing science to transform future microelectronics technologies. The MSRCs were authorized by the Micro Act, passed in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and complement the activities appropriated under the CHIPS and Science Act at the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, and other agencies.