Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. LIPINSKI. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment to redirect an additional $25 million within the Department of Energy Office of Science to increase support for the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility is at a critical moment as it prepares for the 2021 deployment of Aurora, the first exascale computer in the United States if not the world. As planned, Aurora will be able to perform one quintillion, or one billion billion, operations per second.

My amendment will allow America to reach this goal. Argonne's Leadership Computing Facility needs the additional funds to cover increased cost of High-Bandwidth Memory, which will be necessary to reach and sustain exascale computing performance. Without additional funding to support Aurora's memory, the entire exascale project is at risk, and the resulting smaller machine will not be able to perform all of the powerful computations planned.

If fully funded, America will remain competitive in the global supercomputing race. Additionally, our scientists will gain a powerful tool for research in drug discovery, energy production, materials science, and additive manufacturing.

It is an economic and national security imperative that the United States maintains leadership in supercomputing by developing an exascale computer as planned. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

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