March 13, 2023 - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a call for proposals to lead the High Performance Data Facility, a project to create a new scientific user facility specializing in advanced infrastructure for data-intensive science.

The competition to lead the High Performance Data Facility is open to the Office of Science national laboratories. Learn more about the call for proposals here.

Numerous, recent Office of Science and community reports have documented DOE’s need for a dynamic and scalable data management infrastructure capable of coping with the vast data being generated by major user facilities, supercomputer simulations, and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools. At the same time, DOE is pursuing an ambitious Integrated Research Infrastructure (IRI) program that aims to provide researchers the ability to seamlessly meld DOE’s unique data resources, experimental user facilities, and advanced computing resources to accelerate the pace of discovery.

The High Performance Data Facility is envisioned as foundational to advancing DOE’s IRI and a broad spectrum of data-intensive research as we enter the era of exascale supercomputing. The HPDF will provide a crucial resource to attack fundamental problems in science and engineering that require nimble, shared access to large data sets, increasingly aggregated from multiple sources. 

The mission of the HPDF will be to enable and accelerate scientific discovery by delivering state-of-the-art data management infrastructure, capabilities, and tools. HPDF will provide leadership in the stewardship of the scientific data lifecycle and will advance DOE’s and the Biden Administration’s commitment to public access to scientific data and FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). The facility will be designed to dynamically configure computation, network resources, and storage to access data at rest or in motion, supporting the use of well-curated datasets as well as near real-time analysis on streamed data directly from experiments or instruments.

Proposals will be subject to peer review. A result from the competition is expected in the Summer 2023 timeframe.

DOE’s Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.