Los Alamos National Laboratory has upgraded its Venado supercomputer with NVIDIA Grace Hopper GPUs and OpenAI's latest reasoning models to enhance national security research, including nuclear simulations.

This deployment, featuring NVIDIA's GH200 chips and 2,560 Grace Hopper Superchips, marks a significant step in AI-driven scientific computing, achieving over 10 exaflops AI performance.

The upgraded Venado system is now on a secure classified network, focusing on critical applications such as plutonium aging, biological threat mitigation, and physics modeling for nuclear stockpile stewardship.

OpenAI’s reasoning models enable faster, more efficient simulations, reducing the time needed for complex scientific breakthroughs from years to months, according to industry leaders.

This initiative represents a strategic shift toward integrating AI into supercomputing for secure research, leveraging high-performance computing to accelerate insights in materials science, DNA research, and energy resiliency.

The project sets industry benchmarks and inspires similar efforts across national labs and tech companies, with Venado’s performance exceeding previous systems and offering energy-efficient, cost-effective solutions.

Future plans include building a new AI-focused supercomputer in 2026 to further strengthen the U.S. position in AI and supercomputing capabilities.

This collaboration with OpenAI and NVIDIA underscores a broader trend of using AI to enhance scientific discovery and national security, with Venado now supporting a growing ecosystem of AI-enabled research.

The use of AI models on Venado signifies a strategic move toward real-time analysis and faster inference times for large language models, boosting defense and security applications.

This is the first time OpenAI’s reasoning models are being employed for national security on a government supercomputer, marking a significant milestone in AI-government collaboration.

Los Alamos has also partnered with OpenAI on AI safety and reasoning projects, expanding AI resources for diverse scientific and security missions across national labs.

Industry observers see Venado as a 'frontier AI factory' that enhances scientific discovery by simulating phenomena previously unobservable, setting a new standard in high-performance AI computing.