Department of Energy Invests up to $3 Million in High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing Sector

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $3 million in funding for high-performance computing (HPC) resources that can help manufacturers streamline their processes, increase their productivity, and shrink their carbon footprint. Through this High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program solicitation, selected teams will work with the world’s most powerful supercomputers and the U.S. national laboratory experts who operate them to solve complex challenges in manufacturing and increase energy efficiency across the sector.

“DOE’s investment in the High Performance Computing for Manufacturing program helps manufacturers leverage the raw processing power of supercomputing technology to reduce their emissions and increase their efficiency, while boosting their competitiveness,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Kelly Speakes-Backman. “These projects will unlock the information we need to decarbonize industry and move us closer to President Biden’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”

High-performance computing enables researchers to perform virtual experiments by applying advanced modeling, simulation, and data analysis to manufacturing processes. Running these experiments on supercomputers provides more accurate and expansive data to help manufacturers achieve optimal results, test new ideas, and save energy, time, and resources.

The HPC4Mfg program solicitation seeks industry partners interested in leveraging HPC resources to make advancements in the following areas:

• Improvements in manufacturing processes that result in significant national energy savings. HPC-developed prediction tools can create fast-running models that allow operators to adjust their processes in real time. This form of instantaneous processing control lowers the margin of error in production and results in significant energy and material savings for manufacturers.
• Improvements in the lifecycle energy consumption of products of interest. HPC technology can accurately predict the behavior of materials and processes used for energy-intensive products. These supercomputer-generated predictions help identify and scale up processes to improve lifecycle energy use of products across many industries – from more energy-efficient semiconductors to fuel-saving vehicles and airplanes through use of lightweight components.
• Efficiency improvements in energy conversion and storage technologies. HPC models can be leveraged to develop, test, and validate next-generation processes for recovering low-temperature waste heat from manufacturing and vehicle operations and turning it into power.

Applicants are encouraged to partner with universities and non-profit organizations located within federally designated Opportunity Zones and/or Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Selected projects will be awarded up to $300,000 to support computing cycles and work performed by DOE national laboratories, universities, and nonprofit partners.

All DOE national laboratories are eligible to participate. The industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the total project funding.

Concept papers will be due on June 8, 2021, at 5 p.m. PT. For more information, register to attend an informational webinar on May 11, 2021 or May 18, 2021.

HPC4Mfg is funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and is a subprogram of the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) initiative. HPC4EI is managed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.