Director’s message

High performance computing (HPC) and the brilliant researchers who use it have a long history at Sandia National Laboratories. The HPC Annual Report highlights the exceptional research being done at the Labs in support of our mission to innovate and discover new technologies to strengthen the nation’s technological superiority.

In this year’s report we showcase how Sandia uses HPC to address the nation’s most interesting and pressing challenges, including improving networks supporting exascale computing and working to stretch the thermodynamic limits of HPC efficiency.

You’ll read how our teams are studying machine learning used in many ways, from investigating its credibility, to predicting how trillions of different ionic liquids will behave without having to test them all, to investigating if we can design structural joints from patterned features without relying on human intuition. You will learn how HPC-driven digital engineering supports unique mission needs and how Sandia engineers are using computerized tomography, or CT scans and computing power to create and test digital twins of explosive tools.

Our researchers tap HPC for studies into Arctic coastal erosion and permafrost demise and the impact on national security posed by climate change and threats to critical infrastructure in the Arctic. These topics and the other innovative research explored in these pages demonstrate Sandia’s excellence in high performance computing.

With this 2023 HPC Report, we pay tribute to a lost colleague and leader, Scott Collis, who was integral to Sandia’s HPC legacy. Scott passed away in September 2022 at the age of 55 from a rare and aggressive cancer. Though his life was cut short, his impact on Sandia and the nation will endure. I have no doubt that Scott would be proud of the work portrayed in this report. I hope you are fascinated and enriched by its contents and share my excitement about HPC at Sandia as we aim for excellence while addressing the greatest challenges facing our nation and world today.