The US Department of Energy (DOE) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) have announced the deployment of two new supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

This move is part of an ongoing effort to advance the country’s AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.

Named Lux and Discovery, the new systems are designed to fulfil requirements set out in the US AI Action Plan, focusing on enabling AI-driven scientific research, supporting energy research and development, and strengthening national security computing resources.

The combined investment in Lux and Discovery totals $1bn from public and private funding sources.

AMD stated that these computing resources are intended for national research laboratories, government agencies, and innovators.

They will help address challenges across energy production, medical research, biotechnology, materials science, manufacturing process innovation, and security analysis.

US 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.”

Scheduled for installation in early 2026, Lux is being developed jointly by ORNL, AMD, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Its architecture relies on AMD Instinct MI355X graphics processing units (GPUs), AMD EPYC central processing units (CPUs), and networking technologies from AMD Pensando.

The system is intended to serve as the first AI Factory supercomputer in the US, providing a platform for AI model training and deployment across scientific disciplines.

The DOE will use Lux to address compute-intensive workloads in fields including energy science, materials research, medicine, and advanced manufacturing.

Meanwhile, Discovery is planned as the DOE’s flagship supercomputer at ORNL with delivery expected in 2028 and user access anticipated in 2029.

It will incorporate next-generation AMD EPYC CPUs, codenamed “Venice,” alongside AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs.

AMD described the MI430X as a purpose-built accelerator for sovereign AI and scientific applications.

Discovery will operate on open-source software stacks and open standards to ensure interoperability and support for a broad range of HPC and AI workloads.

Its hardware design will feature increased node-level memory capacity and network bandwidth relative to earlier exascale platforms such as Frontier.

When operational, Discovery is expected to be positioned as a principal component of what has been described as the “American AI Stack,” supporting long-term objectives in developing scientific computing capabilities and secure AI infrastructure.

AMD chair and CEO Dr Lisa Su said: “We are proud and honoured 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 US research priorities in science, energy, and medicine – demonstrating the power of public-private partnership at their best.”

Recently, AMD and OpenAI struck a 6-gigawatt (GW) agreement under which the ChatGPT developer will deploy multiple generations of AMD Instinct GPUs to power its next-generation AI infrastructure.