Our Focus
Sandia’s Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) Research Foundation is responsible for stewardship and innovative R&D across a broad set of capabilities in mathematics, computer science, computational sciences, and data/information sciences. These capabilities are essential to most of Sandia’s current mission activities and are anticipated to play an even greater role in the future.
Keeping pace with continued advances in microprocessors, accelerators, and ever more capable and complex computers, CIS engages in research and development in computing and information sciences to enable Sandia’s national security missions and to advance the frontiers of science and engineering.
CIS Research Areas
The technical scope of technologies and R&D that CIS stewards is defined by three CIS Research Areas:
Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) – High Performance Computing, including platform architectures, operating systems and software environments, and Beyond Moore Computing (e.g. non-conventional, neuromorphic, and quantum) emphasizing extreme heterogeneity.
Mathematics, Algorithms and Simulation (MAS) – Rigorous mathematical and computational simulation technologies with emphasis on scalability, performance, credibility, and multi-everything (scale, physics, fidelity, etc.).
Information Science and Technology (IST) – Discrete algorithms and analysis, data science, and decision support technologies supporting human-machine teams enabling high-consequence decisions.
CIS Strategic Initiatives
To be responsive to critical future mission objectives, CIS has defined three strategic initiatives that guide future CIS strategic investments:
- Trusted Artificial Intelligence – Mathematical foundations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) that quantify uncertainty, improve explainability, and provide resiliency to adversarial subversion.
- Mission-Driven Computing Co-Design – co-design across computing systems, software, operations, algorithms, and applications to enable the complex workflows demanded by future mission applications.
- Empowering Humans through Computing – Workflows, automation, decision support, and human-data systems that improve productivity and enhance our ability to design national security systems.
Why our work matters
Computing is essential to all branches of science and engineering and is pervasive across Sandia. We anticipate and create the advances in computing and information sciences to accelerate their development and adoption in support of Sandia’s missions. We develop future computing technologies, new mathematics and algorithms, and sophisticated applications.
Our unique value
- Competencies in multidisciplinary fields including device physics, computer architecture, mathematics, computer science, and informatics.
- World-class modeling, simulation, and data analysis capabilities.
- A long history of first-of-a-kind computers and world-leading computational capability