The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. 

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations. 

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics. 

Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials. It can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second. 

The system combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets. It will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back. 

Nexus will also have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting. 

Source: Georgia Tech News Center

Image: Georgia Tech