The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has unveiled its new flagship supercomputer, “Teton,” now available to users through the Department of Energy. Ranking as the 85th fastest in the world, Teton quadruples the lab’s computational capacity to accelerate the design and deployment of next-generation nuclear reactors.
A computing powerhouse has just come online, and it’s dedicated to powering America’s energy future. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) recently announced that its newest supercomputer, Teton, is now operational and accessible to researchers. This massive upgrade quadruples the lab’s high-performance computing (HPC) muscle, providing an indispensable tool for scientists working to advance nuclear technology. As INL stated, this capacity is critical for meeting the growing demand for simulations needed to accelerate reactor deployment.
So, what makes Teton such a big deal? It’s all about raw speed and specialized design. Taking over as the lab’s flagship system from the 2020-era Sawtooth supercomputer, Teton boasts the ability to perform a staggering 20.8 quadrillion calculations per second. This performance lands it at 85th on the global list of fastest supercomputers. Perhaps more impressively, it packs this power into a footprint only one-third the size of its predecessor, Sawtooth. “This represents a significant investment in the computational infrastructure needed to accelerate advanced reactor deployment,” said Brenden Heidrich, Director of the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF).
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The secret to its prowess isn’t just more hardware; it’s smarter, more focused hardware. Teton was specifically architected as one of the world’s largest CPU-only systems. Unlike systems that blend CPUs with graphics processing units (GPUs), this design is ideally suited for the complex modeling and simulation codes used in nuclear reactor design, which often run more efficiently on CPUs. For researchers, this specialization translates into dramatically shorter wait times. Computations that once took days will now be completed in hours.
This new resource arrives not a moment too soon. Prior to Teton’s launch, the demand for the lab’s Collaborative Computing Center far outstripped supply, with the system being oversubscribed. Access is provided at no cost to qualified researchers through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), the department’s only designated nuclear energy user facility. With Teton online, the queue for these vital simulations will shorten considerably, speeding up innovation across industry, national laboratories, and academia.
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Teton won’t work alone. It joins an existing fleet of INL supercomputers—Sawtooth, Bitterroot, Hoodoo, and Wind River—to meet the surging demand. Together, they form a formidable digital testing ground. As Director Brenden Heidrich explained, “Teton will enable researchers to model and simulate next-generation nuclear technologies with unprecedented fidelity, dramatically reducing the time from concept to deployment for critical nuclear energy projects.” This isn’t just about faster calculations; it’s about faster realization of secure, clean energy.
