NERSCPowering Scientific Discovery Since 1974

Shining a Light on Microbial Dark Matter

NERSC collaborations help illuminate Earth’s biodiversity. » Read More

Perlmutter Supports Gravitational Lensing System Modeled on GPUs

A team of researchers has modeled a rare instance of strong gravitational lensing known as an Einstein Cross. It’s likely the first such model run on GPUs. » Read More

NERSC Helps Scientists Build Public Health Datasets from Location Services

Research focuses on human interaction patterns to understand drivers of the COVID-19 spread and mitigation » Read More

‘Intro to HPC’ Bootcamp Focuses on Energy Justice

DOE'S broad-based program emphasizes social issues to attract a diverse pool of students to computing sciences » Read More

New Math Methods and Perlmutter HPC Combine to Deliver Record-Breaking ML Algorithm

Using the Perlmutter system at NERSC, researchers have developed and demonstrated a new method for analyzing extremely large datasets. » Read More

National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center

Computing at NERSC

Now Playing

A sample of scientific computing now happening at NERSC

Project System Nodes Node Hours Used
Lattice QCD search for physics beyond the standard model
 High Energy Physics
 PI: Rajan Gupta, Los Alamos National Laboratory
perlmutter 128
N9ES-N1 NWChemEx
 Advanced Scientific Computing Research
 PI: Hubertus Van Dam, Brookhaven National Lab
perlmutter 100
GPU accelerated EMC algorithm
 Biological & Environmental Research
 PI: Derek Mendez, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
perlmutter 64
First-Principles Catalyst Design for Environmentally Benign Energy Production
 Basic Energy Sciences
 PI: Manos Mavrikakis, University of Wisconsin - Madison
perlmutter 57
Machine Learning to model the full space of chemical biology and drug discovery with quantum-mechanical accuracy
 Advanced Scientific Computing Research
 PI: Thomas Miller, Entos Inc.
perlmutter 32
Compressibility and Magnetic Effects on Instabilities and Turbulence in HEDP Flows
 Fusion Energy Sciences
 PI: Hussein Aluie, University of Rochester
perlmutter 32

'Bubbles' the Cray-2

Cray 2 cropped

In 1985, NERSC was the first to install the Cray-2, then the fastest computer in the world. Today, just about any mobile phone has more processing power. The Cray-2 was nicknamed "Bubbles" for its unique liquid cooling system.

 

Visit our interactive timeline to learn more about NERSC history.