National Laboratory of the Rockies Energy Systems Integration Facility High Performance Computing Request for Information

Background
The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for energy systems research and development. NLR focuses on developing and integrating a broad array of energy technologies into robust, resilient systems to lower energy costs, drive economic growth, bolster national security, and deliver reliable energy.

The Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) at NLR hosts Kestrel, the primary high-performance computing system for work supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI). NLR is preparing to replace Kestrel with a new system (ESIF-HPC-4) that meets CMEI's mission needs for the 2028–2032 timeframe, ensuring compatibility with the ESIF data center's focus on energy efficiency and computational performance.

Work Details
NLR seeks to gather information on currently available technologies in the marketplace for the ESIF-HPC-4 system. The desired system characteristics include:
1. GPU-accelerated compute nodes that support AI/ML workloads and traditional HPC applications;
2. CPU-based compute nodes for efficient workloads not requiring GPU acceleration;
3. A storage system with a performance tier providing high-bandwidth, low-latency support for HPC workloads, and a capacity tier optimized for large datasets;
4. A high-speed interconnect to support scalability across multi-node applications;
5. Options for consumption-based compute resources to flexibly augment capacity as needed.

The anticipated workload includes traditional modeling and simulation tasks as well as an increasing proportion of AI/ML-driven workloads.

Period of Performance
The anticipated delivery schedule includes substantial first-phase system delivery in December 2027, with a potential second-phase delivery in May 2029.

Place of Performance
The contract will be performed at the National Laboratory of the Rockies.