ACADEMIA

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has selected six industry projects for the advancement of energy technologies using high performance computing (HPC).

Called the “hpc4energy incubator,” this pilot program aims to innovate and accelerate the development of energy technology and boost U.S. economic competitiveness in the global marketplace by teaming industry with the supercomputing resources at national laboratories.

The companies selected are: GE Energy Consulting; Robert Bosch LLC; Potter Drilling Inc.; ISO New England; United Technologies Research Center; and GE Global Research.

These companies will collaborate with LLNL scientists and use LLNL's HPC to find solutions to urgent energy-related problems and learn how to employ HPC as a powerful tool for innovation.

“By bringing together industry’s entrepreneurial know-how and the national labs’ science and technology, we aim to establish a model for energy technology innovation,” said Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, LLNL deputy director for Science & Technology. “Our goal is to boost U.S. economic competitiveness in the global energy market by accelerating the development of new energy technologies.

“The national labs offer access to some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers as well as the multidisciplinary expertise required to apply HPC to the development of innovative solutions to the country’s energy challenges,” added Diaz de la Rubia, who announced the pilot program last year at a Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative (TLSI) workshop, sponsored by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness and hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Washington D.C.

The hpc4energy incubator emerged from the National Summit on Advancing Clean Energy Technologies held in Washington D.C. in May, 2011, sponsored by the Howard Baker Forum, the Bipartisan Policy Center, LLNL, and other partners who focused on exploring how HPC can catalyze rapid advancement of U.S. clean energy technologies. This program also addresses the needs and benefits identified earlier in studies by the Council on Competitiveness in strengthening the U.S. manufacturing sector and competitiveness as a whole. The studies identified HPC as a key competitive advantage for the U.S. and underscored the importance of removing the barriers inhibiting industry’s adoption of HPC.

The projects will be managed by LLNL’s High Performance Computing Innovation Center, which is dedicated to partnering with American industry to apply HPC to the innovation of new technologies. http://hpcinnovationcenter.llnl.gov/  The HPCIC is located in LLNL’s open campus, an open research and development area for collaboration with industry, academia and other government agencies.

For more information, see the newly updated Website: hpc4energy.org.