Latest news with #ManhattanProject
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Buyouts likely for six Florissant homes due to radioactive contamination
FLORISSANT, Mo. – The owners of six homes in Florissant are likely to be offered buyouts due to radioactive contamination. City officials have been made aware of a potential planned buyout of six homes in Florissant's Cades Cove subdivision, according to a statement from Florissant Mayor Timothy Lowery. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers previously told city officials that six homes are currently the only area of concern, according to the mayor's office. According to FOX 2's news partners at the St. Louis Post Dispatch, federal officials have cited concerns about radioactive waste below the backyards of six properties. Removing the homes is likely necessary because of the contaminated soil lies close to and may impact the foundations. Watchdog group calls for St. Louis Sheriff's removal over alleged misconduct Homeowners are in the process of gathering necessary paperwork. The federal government hasn't made any offers just yet. Over the last few years, national reports have surfaced suggesting that the federal government downplayed and failed to fully investigate the risks of nuclear waste contamination that stemmed from the Manhattan Project, a World War II-era uranium production effort that occurred in the St. Louis region. When leftover nuclear waste was later disposed, it found way into Coldwater Creek, a 19-mile tributary of the Missouri River that runs through neighborhoods, schools, and parks. On Friday, Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley – a longtime advocate for cleanup of radioactive waste in the St. Louis area – sent a letter to Lieutenant General William H. Graham, Jr. of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, calling for accountability. The letter raises concerns about the scope of radioactive contamination along nearby Coldwater Creek and questions why only the Cades Code subdivision is being considered for buyouts. 'It should come as no surprise that the community is extremely concerned about proposals for residential buyouts after USACE previously downplayed the potential risks,' said Hawley in the letter. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Meanwhile, a statement sent to FOX 2 on the potential buyouts from the Florissant Mayor's Office, in part, includes the following: 'For decades, both the city and our residents have received inconsistent and at times conflicting information regarding contamination, flood mitigation plans, and potential buyouts. This prolonged lack of clarity has contributed to confusion, frustration, and a sense of mistrust among those impacted. Promises of transparency, timely updates, and genuine engagement have not always been upheld, and our community deserves better moving forward. 'We are actively seeking more information about the scope and timeline of the potential buyout and are committed to working closely with all involved agencies to ensure that impacted families have the resources, information, and support they need during this process.' 'Florissant will continue to advocate for a fair, transparent, and consistent approach moving forward. We will share updates with the community as they become available, and we will not hesitate to hold the responsible agencies accountable for delivering clear and honest communication.' Any residents with concerns or questions are encouraged to contact Florissant City Hall directly at 314-921-5700. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
What is DOGE? Exploring its journey and the impact of Elon Musk's exit
'It is probably the Manhattan Project of our time,' U.S President Donald Trump said as he announced the creation of DOGE- The Department of Government Efficiency- under Elon Musk's leadership. As Elon Musk steps away from DOGE, announcing his departure via X, we examine the DOGE journey so far. To “implement the President's DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.â€� And at its helm, in effect - Elon Musk, the world's richest man. The DOGE service has a USDS Administrator reporting to the White House Chief of Staff- subsequent reports have identified the acting administrator to be Amy Gleason.(Not who was designated a special government employee.) Additionally, the order established the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, 'to advance the President’s 18 month DOGE agenda,' with a termination date of July 4, 2026. It was this unknown entity which was converted into the United States DOGE Service with the signing of the executive order on January 20, 2025. Its mission statement: to use design and technology to deliver better services to the American people. It collaborated with public servants across agencies to improve critical services, for example, offering better user design for the Social Security Administration website. The United States Digital Service, a small technological unit within the Executive Office of the President, was created in 2014 to help streamline government services. These teams were to include, at the very least, one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. each agency head was directed to establish a DOGE team with four employees, selected in consultation with the USDS administrator. Click on each of the photos of the employees shown below to know more about them DOGE has not been very forthcoming about its employees, and works without Congressional oversight. However, recent media investigations have revealed several of the key figures in the shadowy DOGE ecosystem, which is structured quite unlike other federal agencies, whether now or in the past. On March 11, Musk said he planned to double the size of his staff in DOGE, from the current 100-odd to 200. Which was then further reduced to $1 trillion (around 14.8% of the government's expenditure) Before Trump's inauguration, Musk promised the American public cuts of $2 trillion, which accounts for roughly 29.6% of the US Government's expenditure in fiscal year 2024 (cuts shown in the graphic are for reference.) In 2024, discretionary spending formed $1.8T, which is around 26.4% of the total. It is discretionary funding unrelated to military, immigration enforcement (and other heads specified via an executive order) which DOGE has chiefly targeted. Most of these DOGE cuts have come from non-military discretionary spendings. Broadly, the U.S federal budget is divided into 3 sections: mandatory (outlays for benefit programmes mandated by law-- like social security), discretionary (those Congress can earmark for a purpose through the budget or legislation), and interest. It has slashed DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity and Accessibility) programmes across departments, nixed most of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), cancelled grants pertaining to climate change and health and targeted the Department of Education- just some of many of its slash-and-burn actions. The Department of Government Efficiency says it is achieving its goals through eight measures: fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes and regulatory savings. The following graphic shows the major cuts (in contracts and grants) which took place across different departments and agencies, as per DOGE's website as of April 20, 2025. Layoffs The strength of the federal government, excluding military personnel, is around 2.4 million. Recent reports indicate that at least 12% of this has been cut. At least 140,000 more reductions are planned. For example, DOGE plans to cut down at least 90% of staff at the Social Security Administration. There are also reports that a Workforce Reshaping tool- a revamped version of a formerly developed Automated Reduction in Force (AutoRIF) tool- may be used to automate the process of cuts. Explore the layoffs by date below: Layoffs also took place at the following agencies on these dates, but the specifics remain unascertained. As of May 1, 2025, at least 1,400 had been laid off from the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) according to a report by Politico E&E In the near future, further layoffs are expected in multiple agencies. An April 22 report said that 15% of the staff at unspecified agencies in the Department of State are at risk of losing their jobs. The 20 agencies or departments where highest number of employees were laid off are as follows: Several of those laid off were probationary employees, terminated before their probations were up (some were reinstated by court orders). In February, Office of Personnel Management targeted all 220,000 probationary employees who were part of the federal government. In addition to this, federal employees across agencies received “fork-in-the-roadâ€� emails offering them the option to resign and receive full pay for a specified period. For example, everyone at the CIA was offered the chance to resign. More than 75,000 people have reportedly taken these buyouts. At least one-quarter of the 100,000 initially fired workers have been rehired at full pay, most of them after judges ruled that their firings were illegal. Some were rehired after it was found that DOGE had “accidentallyâ€� fired workers responsible for nuclear weapons safety and aviation safety, and researchers involved in the response to bird flu and Ebola. DOGE’s actions were met with resistanceâ€' even internally. On February 27, 21 DOGE employees reportedly resigned in protest, writing in an anonymous letter that they would not use their skills as technologists 'to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.' Their concerns about data stemmed from DOGE employees seeking- and obtaining- access to tranches of sensitive data, some of which was usually given to officials with high security clearance, often on a need-to-know basis. Legal challenges Around 200 lawsuits and appeals have been filed against actions taken by the Trump administration, and around 30 implicate DOGE. Some of these deal with the status of DOGE, questioning Mr Musk’s position in the government and the constitutional basis for the creation of the department. One of these - J. Does v. Musk â€' has been filed by state attorneys general and retired government officials, and alleges that Mr. Musk’s role required confirmation by the Senate, given the authority he was wielding. A multi-State suit â€' New Mexico v. Musk â€' raises similar contentions. The lack of transparency has given rise to lawsuits alleging violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Department of Interior, Public Citizen v. Trump). A protestor waves an inverted American flag, known as a symbol of distress, at City Hall during a Hands Off! protest in Los Angeles, California on April 5, suits have questioned the dismantling of agencies or their boards by DOGE. Brehm v. Marocco deals with the shuttering of the African Development Foundation, while at least two suits relate to the actions taken by DOGE at the United States Institute of Peace (Pippenger v. DOGE, United States Institute of Peace v. Kenneth Jackson). The decision in the second lawsuit, ruling that DOGE’s actions at USIP were unlawful , has been appealed. Layoffs and cuts have also been challenged in court. A Maryland judge ruled on March 13 that the government should rehire probationary employees who were fired without cause (in State of Maryland v. United States Department of Agriculture ), but this has been appealed by the government. Some complaints are making their way through administrative bodies which serve appellatory functions. Several citizen organisations and non-profits all came together in Japanese American Citizens League v. Musk , alleging that DOGE and Musk's actions were ultra vires the constitution and causing harm to the public. Actions cited by them included the firing of federal employees in departments such as the Department of Education and National Park Service, and the cutting of funding for scientific research. The biggest tranche of suits involving DOGE perhaps is those alleging violation of privacy laws by permitting access to sensitive government information such as social security numbers and tax information. This includes those brought by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers. On March 20, a temporary restraining order blocked DOGE from accessing social security records. Conflicts of interest A major concern about DOGE raised by detractors was the fact that Mr. Musk may have several conflicts of interests in his role, as a technocrat with multiple government contracts. Over the years, Musk’s business has benefitted from at least $38 billion in funding from the US government, in the form of government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax creditsâ€' particularly those aimed at boosting the electric vehicle industry. Some of these contracts are ongoing. For example, SpaceX has multiple contracts with several US departments, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense and NASA. It has been developing spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, which comes under the ambit of the Pentagon. It continues to participate in bids for government contracts: a Washington Post article reported that internet satellite service Starlink, which comes under SpaceX, and Verizon were in competition for a $2.4 billion FAA contract. Demonstrators protest against Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency cuts outside a Tesla dealership, Saturday, April 12, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel/AP Photo) DOGE cuts may also, directly or indirectly, aid Mr. Musk’s businesses. For example, the EPA, which saw major reductions and cuts, has in the past cited Tesla for hazardous waste mismanagement and pollution. A division in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which saw cuts was tasked with the oversight of autonomous vehiclesâ€' a major component of Tesla’s business. The now-dismantled USAID had been investigating government ties with Starlink. Some employees at the Food and Drug Administration who had been reviewing Mr. Musk’s neurotech company Neuralink had been firedâ€' and later rehired DOGE’s access to sensitive data, including those pertaining to labour, was another issue. Elon Musk is, or was, a special government employee. Such employees are subject to relaxed financial reporting and conflict of interest laws such as the Ethics in Government Act and criminal conflict of interest provisions. Additionally, the White House informed the press that Mr. Musk would police his own conflicts of interest. There is a dearth of oversight particularly after the widespread layoffs. In early February, Mr. Trump fired the Director of the Office of Government Ethics, the department that would oversee potential conflicts of interest. And in January, he had fired 17 Inspectors-General, who perform a watchdog function for various departments. Protests Several anti-government protests have taken place across the United States since the start of Donald Trump’s second term. This includes Hands Off rallies protesting administration policies and planned events under the 50501 movement â€' a decentralized campaign that began on Reddit and got its name from a February 5 push for '50 protests in 50 states in 1 day.' Protesters attend a Hands Off rally to demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump near the Washington Monument on the National Mall on April 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo bySome protests and criticisms have expressly targeted Elon Musk and his involvement with DOGE. In a poll released in May, 58% of those surveyed said they disapproved of how Mr. Musk was handling DOGE’s work, and 60% disapproved of Mr. Musk himself. He demonstrated a net favourability rating of -14.4 in another poll released on May the dismantling of USAID, Mr Musk was criticised by fellow billionaire Bill Gates. 'The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,' Mr. Gates said in an interview with The New York Times. Along with Democrats, Republicans too have expressed reservations over the speed and scale of DOGE’s work. 'These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages ... It's a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well,' Senator John Curtis (R-Utah), is reported to have said. Tesla itself has borne the brunt of anti-Musk sentiments. Several Tesla locations have seen anti-Musk demonstrations, with slogans like “Musk Must Goâ€� and “Block Fascism Now.â€� Tesla cybertrucks and charging stations have also been destroyed, in cities like Seattle and Boston. A website called DOGEQUEST was created to pinpoint owners of Tesla and their addresses, specifically to target them. The public ire has also translated to a poor performance for Tesla on the stock market. Reports indicate that, at one point, share prices dropped by 71% post the Presidential election. On May 28, Tesla's stock prices were $356.9, which was just over 16% less than its price when assumed office. Tesla investors such as Ross Gerber, a wealth manager and longtime Tesla supporter, criticised Musk’s government role, and in April, Mr. Musk assured his investors that he would significantly scale back his government responsibilities to focus on his corporate ones. This is even as some media outlets reported that it would be difficult to see DOGE cuts pass muster in Congress. The White House is sending some proposed rescissions, a mechanism used to cancel previously authorised spending, to Capitol Hill to solidify some of DOGE’s cuts, The end of the road for Musk? On March 27, Elon Musk said he was disappointed by the 'big, beautiful bill' mooted by President Donald Trump and passed by House Republicans last week. The Bill is yet to pass in the Senate. 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' Mr. Musk said in an interview with CBS News. In a post on X on May 29, he announced his departure:
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
US made a terrible mistake when it deported this Chinese rocket scientist
In 1950, though it didn't know it yet, the American government held one of the keys to winning the Cold War: Qian Xuesen, a brilliant Chinese rocket scientist who had already transformed the fields of aerospace and weaponry. In the halls of the California Institute of Technology and MIT, he had helped solve the riddle of jet propulsion and developed America's first guided ballistic missiles. He was made a colonel in the US Air Force, worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project and was sent to Germany to interrogate Nazi scientists. Dr Qian wanted the first man in space to be American — and was designing a rocket to make it happen. Then he was stopped short. At the height of his career, there came a knock at the door, and he was handcuffed in front of his wife and young son. Prosecutors would eventually clear Dr Qian of charges of sedition and espionage, but the United States deported him anyway — traded back to Communist Beijing in a swap for about a dozen American prisoners of war in 1955. The implications of that single deportation are staggering: Dr Qian returned to China and immediately persuaded Mao Zedong to put him to work building a modern weapons program. By the decade's end, China tested its first missile. By 1980, it could rain them down on California or Moscow with equal ease. Dr Qian wasn't just rightly christened the father of China's missile and space programs; he set in motion the technological revolution that turned China into a superpower. His story has been top of mind for me (I've been working on a biographical book project on him for several years now) as we've watched the Trump administration ruthlessly target foreign students and researchers. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio turned up the pressure, announcing that the administration would work to 'aggressively revoke' visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in 'critical fields.' There are some one million foreign students in the United States — more than 250,000 of them Chinese. Dr Qian's deportation should serve as an important cautionary tale. It proved an American misstep, fueled by xenophobia, that would forever alter the global balance of power. In an echo of the current moment, he became a target of the hysteria around Senator Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare because he was a Chinese national and a scientist. He was humiliated when his security clearance was revoked. The price paid for shunning Dr Qian has been dear. Not only did the United States miss a chance to leapfrog the Soviet Union in manned spaceflight; it gave China the one resource it lacked to challenge American dominance in Asia: significant scientific prowess. In addition to closing that gap, his return to China ushered in generations of homegrown Chinese scientific breakthroughs. To this day, Washington spends billions of dollars on a nuclear umbrella shielding our Pacific allies from his technical achievements. When asked about America's deportation of Dr Qian, the former Navy Secretary Dan Kimball said, 'It was the stupidest thing this country ever did.' Dr Qian came to the United States as a young man of 23. He benefited from a scholarship that now seems to represent a vanished mind-set: the idea that international educational exchange would promote American values and foster world peace. Edmund James, the American representative in Beijing, set up the fund that brought Dr Qian and other students like him to the United States. 'The nation which succeeds in educating the young Chinese of the present generation,' Dr James wrote to President Teddy Roosevelt, 'will be the nation which for a given expenditure of effort will reap the largest possible returns in moral, intellectual and commercial influence.' By the 1960s, three-quarters of China's 200 most eminent scientists, including future Nobel Prize winners, had been trained in America, thanks to Dr James. In California, Dr Qian joined up with a group of other promising young scientists who called themselves the Suicide Squad, after at least one of their early experiments blew up a campus lab. At an annual meeting of engineers, two of the squad members announced they had worked out how to create a rocket capable of flying 1,000 miles vertically above the earth's surface. Soon they acquired a more official name: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1949, Dr Qian was chosen to lead the laboratory, which by then was the precursor to NASA. He not only wanted to help the United States win the space race, but he also unveiled plans to use rockets in air travel to allow passengers to get from New York to Los Angeles in less than an hour. Was Dr Qian a spy? Was he a Communist? There was no convincing evidence of either, but it's unclear whether the American government ever cared. Protests by top defense officials and academics, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, who worked with Dr Qian on the Manhattan Project, went unheeded. After five years under house arrest, Dr Qian was begging the Chinese government to help him escape the United States. State Department documents, now declassified, suggest that Dr Qian had become a highly undervalued pawn in the eyes of the Eisenhower administration, traded back to China for US airmen. The Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, speaking triumphantly about the negotiations, said: 'We had won back Qian Xuesen. That alone made the talks worthwhile.' Dr Qian never returned to the United States and served the rest of his life as a celebrated leader of the Chinese Communist Party. He is seen as a national hero, too, with a museum built to honor his accomplishments. Most of his remarks in his later years were either technical documents or party propaganda against America. In 1966, however, one of his former Caltech colleagues received a postcard decorated with a traditional Chinese drawing of flowers and postmarked in Beijing. On it Dr Qian had written simply, 'This is a flower that blooms in adversity.' Mr. Rubio's announcement, although short on details, has surely set off waves of anxiety among international students and their colleagues at research universities, as schools and laboratories brace themselves for further disruption. Something larger has been lost, though: America once saw educating the strivers of the world as a way to enhance and strengthen our nation. It was a strategic advantage that so many of the best and brightest thinkers, scientists and leaders wanted to study here and to be exposed to American democracy and culture. Dr Qian's achievements on behalf of China demonstrate the risk of giving up that advantage and the potential dark side of alienating — rather than welcoming — the world's talent. There's always the chance that it will someday be used against us.
Axios
3 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Behind the Curtain: The Great Fusing
America's government and technology giants are fusing into a codependent superstructure in a race to dominate AI and space for the next generation. Why it matters: The merging of Washington and Silicon Valley is driven by necessity — and fierce urgency. The U.S. government needs AI expertise and dominance to beat China to the next big technological and geopolitical shift — but can't pull this off without the help of Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and many others. These companies can't scale AI, and reap trillions in value, without government helping ease the way with more energy, more data, more chips and more precious minerals. These are the essential ingredients of superhuman intelligence. The big picture: Under President Trump, both are getting what they want, as reported by Axios' Zachary Basu: 1. The White House has cultivated a deep relationship with America's AI giants — championing the $500 billion "Stargate" infrastructure initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle, Japan's SoftBank, and the UAE's MGX. Trump was joined by top AI executives — including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Amazon's Andy Jassy and Palantir's Alex Karp — during his whirlwind tour of the Middle East this month. Trump sought to fuse U.S. tech ambitions with Gulf sovereign wealth, announcing a cascade of deals to bring cutting-edge chips and data centers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Trump and his tech allies envision a geopolitical alliance to outpace China, flood the globe with American AI, and cement control over the energy and data pipelines of the future. 2. Back at home, the Trump administration is downplaying the risks posed by AI to American workers, and eliminating regulatory obstacles to quicker deployment of AI. Trump signed a series of executive orders last week to hasten the deployment of new nuclear power reactors, with the goal of quadrupling total U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Congress that AI is "the next Manhattan Project" — warning that losing to China is "not an option" and that government must "get out of the way." The House version of Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," which passed last week, would impose a 10-year ban on any state and local laws that regulate AI. AI companies big and small are winning the U.S. government's most lucrative contracts — especially at the Pentagon, where they're displacing legacy contractors as the beating heart of the military-industrial complex. Between the lines: Lost in the rush to win the AI arms race is any real public discussion of the rising risks. The risk of Middle East nations and companies, empowered with U.S. AI technology, helping their other ally, China, in this arms race. The possibility, if not likelihood, of massive white-collar job losses as companies shift from humans to AI agents. The dangers of the U.S. government becoming so reliant on a small set of companies. The vulnerabilities of private data on U.S. citizens. Zoom in: The Great Fusing has created a new class of middlemen — venture capitalists, founders and influencers who shuttle between Silicon Valley and Washington, shaping policy while still reaping tech's profits. Elon Musk could become the government's main supplier of space rockets, satellites, internet connectivity, robots and other autonomous technologies. And with what he's learned via DOGE, Musk's xAI is well-positioned to package AI products and then sell them back to the U.S. government. David Sacks, Trump's AI and crypto czar, acts as the premier translator between the two worlds — running point on policy, deals, and narrative through his government role, tech network, and popular "All-In" podcast. Marc Andreessen, whose VC firm Andreessen Horowitz has stakes in nearly every major AI startup, has been a chief evangelist of the pro-acceleration, anti-regulation doctrine at the core of Trump's AI agenda. Reality check: The Great Fusing has been led more by Silicon Valley iconoclasts (Musk) than the incumbent stalwarts (including Mark Zuckerberg), who have rushed to align with the emerging gravitational pull. Tech-education nexus: Silicon Valley, facing a new race for AI engineers, cheered during the campaign when Trump floated automatic green cards for foreign students who graduated from U.S. colleges. But so far, tech moguls have been relatively quiet as Trump halted all student visa interviews and tried to ban international matriculation to Harvard. New defense reality: Palantir, Anduril and other advanced defense tech companies have more Pentagon traction than ever, robotics companies are surging and entire industries are being born — including undersea drones and space-based weapons.
The Star
3 days ago
- Business
- The Star
US Energy Department unveils supercomputer that merges with AI
SAN FRANCISCO: Scientific computing and artificial intelligence were once separate worlds, using different kinds of calculations on distinctly different hardware. But the two fields are steadily merging, as shown by a massive new machine coming to Berkeley, California. On Thursday, the Department of Energy's laboratory near the University of California, Berkeley, said it had selected Dell Technologies to deliver its next flagship supercomputer in 2026. The system will use Nvidia chips tailored for AI calculations and the simulations common to energy research and other scientific fields. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory expects the new machine – to be named for Jennifer Doudna, a Berkeley biochemist who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize for chemistry – to offer more than a tenfold speed boost over the lab's most powerful current system. If fully outfitted, the machine could be the Energy Department's biggest resource for tasks like training AI models, said Jonathan Carter, associate laboratory director for computing sciences at the Berkeley center. The supercomputer stands out for its technology choices, which indicate the growing desire for government labs to adopt more technologies from commercial AI systems. Nvidia chips, though widely used by big cloud companies as well as in supercomputers, were passed over by the Energy Department for three previous record-setting machines that were assembled by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Dell has hardly been a player in the highest end of the supercomputer market, but it has had success in large commercial AI installations. 'HPE has been sweeping the DOE space,' said Addison Snell, the CEO of Intersect360 Research, which tracks the supercomputer market. 'This is a big win for Dell.' Supercomputers – which are computing systems that take up entire rooms first used for jobs like designing weapons and cracking codes – have long been symbols for national prowess in technology. The Energy Department, which typically purchases the government's biggest computers, devoted US$1.8bil (RM 7.63bil) over eight years to reach what the industry calls 'exascale' performance, topped by a US$600mil (RM 2.54bil) supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory called El Capitan. The Trump administration has not set a comparable funding target, nor has a price for the Berkeley system been released. But Chris Wright, secretary of energy, who has compared AI's development to the Manhattan Project, called the Doudna machine a key tool for winning the global AI race in remarks prepared for a Thursday event in Berkeley to announce the system. Supercomputers have historically relied on precise calculations, handling data in what are known as 64-bit chunks. Commercial AI systems often use simpler 16-bit or 8-bit instructions, sacrificing accuracy for higher speed. Being able to use a mix of calculations in supercomputers powered by graphics processing units, the chips Nvidia sells for AI, opens up many new kinds of computing jobs, said Dion Harris, Nvidia's head of data center product marketing. The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Berkeley already used Nvidia's GPUs in a system called Perlmutter. Doudna will use a future version called Rubin but, in a key technical departure, will also use a general-purpose Nvidia processor based on technology from the British company Arm rather than Intel and Advanced Micro Devices chips. Carter said Doudna's design was partly driven by the need to serve various tasks used by the center's 11,000 users. Besides historical jobs like modeling how fusion reactors work, researchers are increasingly using AI to improve simulations of phenomena such as how water removes heat from geothermal fields, he said. Other attractions of using Nvidia included its array of AI software, tailored for tasks like modeling future quantum computers, Carter said. Executives at Dell, which outbid other vendors for the Berkeley system, said the contest offered a chance to design systems that could be adapted to serve many customers – breaking from a tradition of customising creations for individual labs. 'This market had shifted into some form of autopilot,' said Paul Perez, a senior vice president and senior technology fellow at Dell. 'What we did was disengage the autopilot.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
