The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a new contract with Dell to develop NERSC-10, the next flagship supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) user facility at Berkeley Lab.
This system, which will debut in 2026, is to be named after Nobel Prize winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna, and would be powered by Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin platform. The supercomputer will be engineered to support large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) workloads like those in molecular dynamics, high-energy physics, and AI training and inference—and provide a robust environment for the workflows that make cutting-edge science possible.
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“The Doudna system represents DOE’s commitment to advancing American leadership in science, AI, and high-performance computing,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “It will be a powerhouse for rapid innovation that will transform our efforts to develop abundant, affordable energy supplies and advance breakthroughs in quantum computing. AI is the Manhattan Project of our time, and Doudna will help ensure America’s scientists have the tools they need to win the global race for AI dominance.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called this machine “a time machine for science,” while National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Director Sudip Dosanjh stated that this machine would give the U.S. an edge in the AI race. Meanwhile Michael Dell, the chairman and CEO of Dell, said that the company’s collaboration with DOE on Doudna underscored “a shared vision to redefine the limits of high-performance computing and drive innovation that accelerates human progress.”
Doudna is expected to play a major role in scientific breakthroughs in different areas. The system’s powerful GPUs are also expected to help DOE-funded researchers to integrate large-scale AI into their simulation and data analysis workflows, advancing discovery in various areas, including advanced materials design, biomolecular modeling, and fundamental physics.
Doudna will be powered by Dell Integrated Rack Scalable Systems and PowerEdge servers with Nvidia accelerators for AI-optimized and compute-optimized workloads, a high-speed Nvidia Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking platform, and a heterogeneous workflow environment that can be reconfigured to support complex workflows.
Data management and storage solutions will offer a high-performance parallel file system and a quality of service storage system, delivering a reliable and resilient platform that supports multi-facility integrated science, automated AI-driven workflows, and real-time interactive computing.