During her first stop on a four-state, technology-focused tour, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks heard from multiple senior Oak Ridge lab officials that the massive investments from the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science for America Act, present a once-in-a-lifetime chance to innovate.

BAE Systems has been tapped to supply a variety of services and capabilities to bolster high performance computing (HPC) efforts across multiple military components. 

Researcher Georgia Tourassi warns that without additional funding scientific innovation could stagnate.

The project will focus on getting technology to state and local first responders to better track and respond to natural disasters.

AMD, NVIDIA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Wyoming Supercomputing Center have joined the growing group. A White House official the consortium has provided computing for 15 projects.

Government, industry and academic partners' 16 systems will provide a combined 330 petaflops of supercomputing capacity for select COVID-19 researchers.