President Trump Announces New Effort to Unleash U.S. Supercomputing Resources to Fight COVID-19
Video courtesy of the Department of Energy

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tonight, President Donald J. Trump announced a new, unique public-private consortium, spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and IBM, including government, industry, and academic leaders to unleash the power of America’s supercomputing resources to combat COVID-19. The launch of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium will provide COVID-19 researchers with access to the world’s most powerful high performance computing resources that can significantly advance the pace of scientific discovery in the fight to stop the virus.

Researchers are invited to submit COVID-19 related research proposals to the consortium via the online portal which will then be reviewed and matched with computing resources from one of the partner institutions. An expert panel of top scientists and computing researchers will work with proposers to quickly assess the public health benefit of the work and coordinate the allocation of the group’s powerful computing assets.

The COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium currently pools 16 systems that together offer over 330 petaflops of supercomputing capacity. Additional capacity, including cloud computing resources, will be added through present and future partners. The sophisticated computing systems available through this Consortium can process massive numbers of calculations related to bioinformatics, epidemiology, molecular modeling, and healthcare system response, helping scientists develop answers to complex scientific questions about COVID-19 in hours or days versus weeks or months.

“Under the Trump Administration, the United States has regained its position as the dominant global force in Supercomputing technology. The Department of Energy is home to the world’s fastest and most powerful supercomputers, and we are eager to partner with leaders across industry and the scientific community who will use our world class innovation and technology to combat COVID-19,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.

“America is coming together to fight COVID-19, and that means unleashing the full capacity of our world-class supercomputers to rapidly advance scientific research for treatments and a vaccine. We thank the private sector and academic leaders who are joining the federal government as part of the Trump Administration’s whole-of-America response,” said Michael Kratsios, U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

“The Department of Energy’s National Labs have made profound advancements towards combatting COVID-19,” saidDOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar. “By providing researchers access to world leading technology here in our own backyard, we take an additional leap towards ending this pandemic. We look forward to collaborating with scientists and researchers to bring an end to COVID-19.”

“DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is eagerly lending its world-class supercomputing resources to combat COVID-19 in collaboration with OSTP and other agencies,” said Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator. “NNSA supercomputers will be available, empowering researchers to understand the COVID-19 virus, develop treatments and vaccines, and ultimately bring an end to this pandemic.”

“Accelerating the process of discovery to unlock treatments and a cure for COVID-19 is of vital importance to us all. By bringing together the world's most advanced supercomputers and matching them with the best ideas and expertise, this consortium can drive real progress in this global fight. IBM is proud to have helped kick-start this important effort," saidDario Gil, Director of IBM Research.

Participants in this consortium will include:

Industry

  • IBM
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Google Cloud
  • Microsoft

Academia

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories

  • Argonne National Laboratory 
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Sandia National Laboratories

Federal Agencies

  • National Science Foundation
  • NASA

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