AMD inks huge deal with US government to power next-gen AI supercomputers with AMD AI hardware

AMD has just inked a deal with the US Department of Energy (DoE) on two new supercomputer projects using AMD hardware.

AMD will be building out two new supercomputers -- the Lux and Discovery supercomputers -- for the US DoE that will be used mostly for academic purposes. In a press release, AMD explained that when fully deployed, the new Lux and Discovery supercomputers will represent a combined $1 billion investment of private and public funding, enabling the DoE to build a secure, federated and standards-based infrastructure for sovereign US-based AI and science.

The new Lux AI supercomputer is co-developed between AMD, ORNL, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and HPE, powered by AMD Instinct MI355X AI GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs, and AMD Pensando advanced networking technologies. The new Discovery AI supercomputer deepens the collaboration between DoE, ORNL, HPE, and AMD with next-gen AMD "Venice" GPUs, and AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs -- a new MI400 series AI accelerator engineered specifically for sovereign AI and scientific computing.

• Read more: US DOE wants to make Discovery: world's fastest supercomputer, 3-5x faster than Frontier

Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO, AMD, said: "We are proud and honored to partner with the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to accelerate America's foundation for science and innovation. Discovery and Lux will leverage AMD's high-performance and AI computing technologies to advance the most critical U.S. research priorities in science, energy, and medicine - demonstrating the power of public-private partnership at their best".

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, said: "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. 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".

ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer, added: "The Discovery system will drive scientific innovation faster and farther than ever before. ORNL's leadership in supercomputing has dramatically shortened researchers' time from problem to solution across a host of fields and industries. With Discovery, the integration of high-performance computing and AI promises breakthroughs at the accelerated speed and scale necessary for continued U.S. leadership in an increasingly competitive global environment".

Antonio Neri, president and CEO at HPE, said: "We are proud that the partnership between HPE and AMD is at the forefront of advancing the next generation of supercomputing in the AI era for Oak Ridge National Laboratory. HPE's newest supercomputing solutions harness converged AI and HPC architectures, enabling the lab to achieve unprecedented productivity and scale. This collaboration also reinforces American leadership in applying AI to science, energy and national security".

Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, added: "Oracle is honored to work alongside the Department of Energy to help drive breakthroughs in science, energy, and national security. Oracle will deliver sovereign, high-performance AI infrastructure that will support the co-development of the Lux AI cluster".