The US Department of Energy (DOE) has chosen Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) to build its new High Performance Data Facility (HPDF) Hub in Newport News, Virginia, US.
Jefferson Lab will collaborate with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to design and build the facility and will lead the joint project team.
Jefferson Lab director Stuart Henderson said: “Our partnership with Berkeley Lab will help ensure geographic resilience and innovative infrastructure for this unique facility in support of researchers across the United States.”
The HPDF, which will be a $300m-$500m computer and data infrastructure resource, will deliver research enterprise advanced data analysis, networking, and storage capabilities for research.
It intends to offer researchers the tools, methodologies, and technology to maximise the scientific value of data and boost the progress of scientific discovery by using advanced computational capabilities.
The HPDF Hub will use a 'hub-and-spoke' model, with Jefferson Lab and Berkeley Lab hosting mirrored centralised resources. The model will see the lead infrastructure at Jefferson Lab being mirrored at the Berkeley Lab site.
This will enable high-priority DOE mission applications at 'spoke' sites through the employment of distributed infrastructure at spokes or various other locations.
The new facility will be housed in the Jefferson Lab Data Center Building. The Commonwealth of Virginia is funding the data centre building’s construction.
The Commonwealth has pledged $43m in funding and already provided $6m in seed funding.
According to Jefferson Lab, work on the conceptual design of the facility’s software and hardware components will start once the joint project team is put together.
