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US Department of Energy Commissions First Liquid-Cooled Blackwell-Powered Supercomputer

June 13, 2026 at 07:41 AM EST
Vetted by Chamindu Ransika
100% Fact-Checked
US Department of Energy Commissions First Liquid-Cooled Blackwell-Powered Supercomputer

Next-Generation Compute for National Science

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has officially commissioned Project Discovery, the country's first supercomputer powered entirely by NVIDIA's Blackwell B200 and B300 architectures. Deployed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), this massive cluster represents a 10x compute capacity leap over existing Hopper-class systems, specializing in advanced simulation, nuclear physics modeling, and autonomous drug discovery.

Unparalleled FP4 Precision and Liquid Cooling

Project Discovery features 18,432 Blackwell GPUs connected via NVLink 5 switches. The system utilizes complete direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems, eliminating traditional air-flow fans and cutting facility power usage effectiveness (PUE) to a record-low 1.05.
  • FP4 Compute Power: The cluster delivers 120 exaflops of AI compute performance using Blackwell's new FP4 numerical format.
  • Energy Efficiency: Liquid cooling allows the system to run continuously at peak performance while consuming 40% less electricity than traditional air-cooled supercomputing architectures.
  • Vetted Strategic Significance

    According to Department of Energy engineers, this deployment secures the United States' lead in scientific compute infrastructure. The supercomputer is already scheduled to simulate advanced climate models and molecular structures for cancer therapies. NVIDIA has stated that Blackwell allocations will continue prioritizing government and national research labs through Q3 2026.

    Vetted News References

    This article was compiled by evaluating and fact-checking primary sources to ensure absolute truth and avoid any speculative hallucinations.

    Read Official Source: NVIDIA Pressroom
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