News

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory had a major presence at this year’s International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC24). 

A chemical reaction can convert two polluting greenhouse gases into valuable building blocks for cleaner fuels and feedstocks, but the high temperature required for the reaction also deactivates the catalyst. A team led by ORNL has found a way to thwart deactivation. The strategy may apply broadly to other catalysts.

Seven scientists affiliated with ORNL have been named Battelle Distinguished Inventors in recognition of being granted 14 or more United States patents. Since Battelle began managing ORNL in 2000, 104 ORNL researchers have reached this milestone.

Using a best-of-nature approach developed by researchers working with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Dartmouth University, startup company Terragia Biofuel is targeting commercial biofuels production that relies on renewable plant waste and consumes less energy. The technology can help meet the demand for billions of gallons of clean liquid fuels needed to reduce emissions from airplanes, ships and long-haul trucks.

In early November, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory used the fastest supercomputer on the planet to run the largest astrophysical simulation of the universe ever conducted. The achievement was made using the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

Researchers have identified a molecule essential for the microbial conversion of inorganic mercury into the neurotoxin methylmercury, moving closer to blocking the dangerous pollutant before it forms. 

Two-and-a-half years after breaking the exascale barrier, the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory continues to set new standards for its computing speed and performance.

Researchers used the world’s fastest supercomputer, Frontier, to train an AI model that designs proteins, with applications in fields like vaccines, cancer treatments, and environmental bioremediation. The study earned a finalist nomination for the Gordon Bell Prize, recognizing innovation in high-performance computing for science.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used the Frontier supercomputer to train the world’s largest AI model for weather prediction, paving the way for hyperlocal, ultra-accurate forecasts. This achievement earned them a finalist nomination for the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modeling.

A research team led by the University of Maryland has been nominated for the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize. The team is being recognized for developing a scalable, distributed training framework called AxoNN, which leverages GPUs to rapidly train large language models.