NSF announces groundbreaking Leadership-Class Computing Facility project

The U.S. National Science Foundation has begun construction on the Leadership-Class Computing Facility (LCCF), a cutting-edge facility led by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) that will revolutionize computational research and development.

Computation — through large-scale simulation, data analysis and artificial intelligence applications — is essential across many areas of research and development. LCCF is envisioned as a distributed computational facility to enable transformative discoveries for broad classes of curiosity-driven and use-inspired science and engineering applications. The project also includes a wide range of education and public outreach plans to grow the future science and engineering workforce and ensure that the nation benefits from access to the facility.

"LCCF represents a pivotal step forward in our mission to support transformative research across all fields of science and engineering," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "This facility will provide the computational resources necessary to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time, enabling researchers to push the boundaries of what is possible."

LCCF is expected to begin operations during 2026 and will deploy the largest academic supercomputer dedicated to open-scientific research in the NSF portfolio. The supercomputer, Horizon, will provide 10x performance improvement for simulation over the current NSF Leadership-Class Computing system, Frontera, and meet the unique scientific requirements of the NSF community. For AI applications, the leap forward will be even larger, with more than 100x improvement over Frontera. Horizon will include a significant investment in specialized accelerators to enable state-of-the-art AI research and more general-purpose processors to support the diverse needs for simulation-based inquiry across all scientific disciplines. In addition to Horizon, LCCF will provide a range of large-scale data storage systems and interactive computing capabilities. 

Beyond the hardware, the project will deploy a wide suite of software and services collectively designed to maximize the utility of LCCF and enable new usage modes for broad classes of applications. Access to the facility will be open to all scientists and engineers nationwide, with allocations to the facility determined through open peer-reviewed processes. 

"UT and TACC have long been recognized as the home of one of the nation's leading academic supercomputing centers, which enables and accelerates discovery that changes the world. The creation of this new facility with NSF means continued excellence and reliability for top researchers from across the country,” said President Jay Hartzell. "We are experiencing a trend where an exponentially increasing number of problems can be solved by computing in general, and artificial intelligence in particular. These are great strengths of our university. This investment will enable UT to make even greater impacts by addressing more challenges using AI, computational science, and other disciplines. We are excited about the privilege to continue in our role as an enabler of work that serves and improves society, and we are grateful to NSF and to our longtime partner in advanced computing, Dell Technologies."

"In recognition of the ubiquitous importance of computing across the sciences, NSF has made large-scale investments in supercomputing for nearly four decades," said Dan Stanzione, the executive director of TACC and principal investigator for the new facility. "With the rise of AI, the role of computing in the process of scientific discovery has expanded even more widely. This new facility represents a sea change in the way NSF invests in large-scale computing — a sustained investment on a time scale that matches the lifetime of other large scientific instruments and collaborations. Together with our partners at UT and around the country, this facility will provide a new class of cyberinfrastructure services — spanning machines and people — to researchers around the world to advance science and advance society." 

The facility will collaborate with four distributed science centers to leverage the deep expertise within the nation's cyberinfrastructure ecosystem:

• Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative at the AUC Consortium, a collaboration of four historically Black colleges and universities: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and Morehouse School of Medicine.
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
• Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, a joint center of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
• San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California San Diego. 

These partnerships will enhance the geographical footprint of the LCCF, ensuring that researchers across the country have access to its resources and services. In addition to the distributed centers deploying hardware resources, The Ohio State University will be a key contributor in advancing the software stack for high-performance networking, and Cornell University will aid in workforce development. 

LCCF is also envisioned as a key element in advancing a future National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), piloted by NSF in coordination with other federal agencies and nongovernmental partners. NAIRR is envisioned as a widely accessible, national cyberinfrastructure that will advance and accelerate the United States AI R&D environment and fuel AI discovery and innovation nationwide.

By integrating advanced computing resources with a comprehensive suite of services, LCCF will enhance NAIRR's ability to support at-scale AI research across a diverse range of fields. This synergy will foster an environment where groundbreaking discoveries can flourish, further cementing the United States as a global leader in AI and computational research.