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Energy businesses asked to join Lab's special program
Incubator aims to accelerate the development of U.S. energy technology

by Jeb Bing

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is asking energy businesses of all sizes for proposals to collaborate with LLNL teams of experts in advancing energy technology through the use of high performance computing (HPC).

This one-year pilot program, called the hpc4energy incubator, aims to accelerate the development of energy technology and boost U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace by teaming industry with the scientific and computing resources at national laboratories.

Companies with the winning proposals will collaborate with LLNL scientists and use LLNL's HPC systems to find solutions to urgent problems and learn how to employ HPC as a powerful tool for innovation.

"HPC lets companies collapse the time and expense of designing and prototyping new products and processes," said Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. "That's important for advanced industrial countries like the U.S. that can't compete on wages and need to be at the frontier of discovery."

Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, LLNL's deputy director for science and technology, agreed.

"In an era of fierce global competition in the clean energy sector, high performance computing can stimulate the rapid advancement of U.S. clean energy technologies," he said.

He announced the pilot program at a Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative (TLSI) workshop, sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness and hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Washington, D.C.

The first step for potential collaborators is to submit a one-page letter of intent providing a high level overview the proposal. Letters of intent should be sent to proposals@hpc4energy.org before 5 p.m. Pacific time on Dec. 16.

For more information, see www.hpc4energy.org.