The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the deployment of two new AMD-accelerated artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). One of these, the Lux AI cluster, will be built using a new public-private partnership model designed to accelerate project timelines and expand America’s AI capacity.
The Lux AI cluster, which uses AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs, and AMD Pensando advanced networking technology, is expected to be operational in early 2026. According to DOE officials, Lux will focus on critical national priorities such as fusion, fission, materials discovery, quantum research, advanced manufacturing, and grid modernization. The system aims to provide a secure and efficient AI software environment to support American innovation and competitiveness.
“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,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “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 commented on the collaboration: “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 has stated that this public-private partnership model will allow for co-investment from both government and private entities while sharing computing resources for mutual benefit. The goal is to reduce supercomputer deployment timeframes from years to months.
A second supercomputer named Discovery will be introduced under DOE’s traditional procurement process in 2028. Discovery will utilize an HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000 platform powered by next-generation AMD EPYC “Venice” processors and AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs. Its performance is expected to surpass Frontier—the current world’s second-largest supercomputer at ORNL—and it aims to advance high-performance computing alongside artificial intelligence and quantum systems.
HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri said: “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, ORNL Laboratory Director added: “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.”
Both projects represent more than $1 billion in combined investment from public funds as well as contributions from AMD and HPE.
