The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, NVIDIA, and Oracle, has announced a new public-private partnership aimed at building the DOE’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer to date. This initiative will provide immediate access to advanced AI computing resources for DOE researchers and lead to the construction of two next-generation AI supercomputing systems at Argonne National Laboratory.
The main system, named Solstice, will be equipped with 100,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and is set to become the largest AI supercomputer within the DOE laboratory network. Another system, Equinox, will include 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. Construction on Equinox at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility is scheduled to begin immediately, with delivery expected in 2026. Both systems are designed to integrate with DOE’s extensive scientific instruments and data networks to address challenges in energy, security, and discovery science.
Oracle will also provide DOE researchers with immediate access to AI computing platforms that use both NVIDIA Hopper and Blackwell architectures. This arrangement is intended to expand capabilities for scientists across the country working on science and energy applications.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright commented on the partnership: “Winning the AI race requires new and creative partnerships that will bring together the brightest minds and industries American technology and science has to offer. The two Argonne systems and the collaboration between the Department of Energy, NVIDIA, and Oracle represent a new commonsense approach to computing partnerships. These systems will be a powerhouse for scientific and technological innovation. Thanks to President Trump, we’re bringing new computing capacity online faster than ever before and turning shared innovation into national strength.”
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, stated: “AI is the most powerful technology of our time, and science is its greatest frontier. Together with the Department of Energy and Oracle, we’re building an AI factory that will serve as America’s engine for discovery, giving researchers access to the most advanced AI infrastructure to drive progress across fields ranging from healthcare research to materials.”
According to DOE officials, this partnership continues a longstanding tradition of public-private collaborations in supercomputing that have maintained American leadership in this field for decades. The current model allows for shared investments between government agencies and private companies such as NVIDIA and Oracle.
Clay Magouyrk, CEO of Oracle said: “At Oracle, we are proud to partner with the Department of Energy to deliver sovereign, high-performance AI capabilities. Our collaboration at Argonne, tapping into the power of OCI [Oracle Cloud Infrastructure], will provide a critical resource to address the nation’s most complex challenges and accelerate the next wave of scientific breakthroughs.”
Paul Kearns, director of Argonne National Laboratory added: “The Equinox and Solstice systems are designed to accelerate a broad set of scientific AI workflows, and we are collaborating with Oracle and NVIDIA to prepare thousands of researchers to effectively leverage the systems’ groundbreaking capabilities. This system will seamlessly connect to forefront DOE experimental facilities such as our Advanced Photon Source, allowing scientists to address some of the nation’s most pressing challenges through scientific discovery.”
The upcoming Equinox and Solstice systems aim not only at developing new frontier models but also at enabling open science using tools like NVIDIA Megatron-Core alongside TensorRT inference software stacks.
This three-phase partnership—starting with immediate access via Oracle-provided resources followed by deployment of Equinox then Solstice—aims at reducing research timelines from conception through discovery by leveraging combined expertise from both government labs and private sector partners.
