News By Location

Starting January 12, through March 16, 2026, researchers will have the opportunity to apply to be the first users on the Discovery supercomputer, arriving in 2028 at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Discovery will play a key role in the Genesis Mission — DOE’s bold new endeavor to advance American leadership in AI and quantum computing. Information and instructions for submitting applications are available at the Discovery Center for Application Readiness (CAAR) — Call For Proposals website.

The partnership began by adapting robotic arc welding into a new form of large-scale metal 3D printing, enabling complex geometries, multi-material deposition and dramatically shorter production timelines. Joint research led to breakthroughs in real-time monitoring, materials qualification and multi-robot coordination, culminating in a system capable of depositing up to 100 pounds of metal per hour. Outcomes from the collaboration are already being applied across U.S. industry, including rapid fabrication of large molds, tooling and replacement parts that would traditionally require months or years to source overseas.

Shaun Gleason, director of the Partnerships Office at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been appointed to Tennessee’s Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council. Council members are appointed by the governor and provide a collaborative source of knowledge, expertise and information sharing to advance the state’s use of AI technologies.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an innovative energy storage system design that introduces a safer, more efficient method for electrical charge transfer. This study advances fundamental understanding of how functional groups impact the mechanical and electrochemical performance of highly charged polyelectrolyte membranes — thin, charged polymer sheets that help control the movement of ions in energy devices.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used specialized tools to study materials at the atomic scale and analyze defects at the materials’ surface. Results of their research help to better understand these materials used for advance electronics, enabling innovative data storage and computation methods.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory partnered with the University of Tennessee to develop a secure, affordable sensing device that delivers unprecedented real-time insight into electric grid behavior. The innovation, called a Universal GridEdge Analyzer, recently won an R&D 100 Award as one of the world’s top inventions.

Denise Antunes da Silva, a senior R&D staff member at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society for her outstanding contributions to the field of ceramics and materials science.

Additive Engineering Solutions, an Ohio-based company that’s now a leader in large-format 3D printing, began as an idea sparked by additive manufacturing research at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, or MDF, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Tech startup Atomic Canyon used the Frontier supercomputer to train nuclear-specific AI models to radically speed up document search and analysis capabilities for nuclear reactors. The AI models are designed to radically reduce the time, labor and resources the nuclear industry spends searching the millions upon millions of complex nuclear documents related to parts, maintenance records, engineering evaluations, regulations and plant procedures. Once fully developed, the open-source AI models could be used in plants all across the country.