quantum materials

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:58:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:58

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

“Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of the AI talent and technologies that are powering a revolution in our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It’s fitting we’ve been selected to host this new supercomputer, which will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation across the nation. We’re grateful to the NSF, and we are excited to get to work.”

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics.

“The Nexus system's novel approach combining support for persistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will accelerate the time to scientific discovery,” said Katie Antypas, National Science Foundation director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced computing capabilities for the research community.”

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

AI is rapidly changing how science is investigated. Researchers use AI to analyze massive datasets, model complex systems, and test ideas faster than ever before. But these tools require powerful computing resources that — until now — have been inaccessible to many institutions.

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

“This supercomputer will help level the playing field,” said Suresh Marru, principal investigator of the Nexus project and director of Georgia Tech’s new Center for AI in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN). “It’s designed to make powerful AI tools easier to use and available to more researchers in more places.”

Srinivas Aluru, Regents’ Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Computing, said, “With Nexus, Georgia Tech joins the league of academic supercomputing centers. This is the culmination of years of planning, including building the state-of-the-art CODA data center and Nexus’ precursor supercomputer project, HIVE."

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

“Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science,” said Charles Isbell, chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “I'm proud that my two academic homes have partnered on this project that will move science, and society, forward.”

What’s Next

Georgia Tech will begin building Nexus this year, with its expected completion in spring 2026. Once Nexus is finished, researchers can apply for access through an NSF review process. Georgia Tech will manage the system, provide support, and reserve up to 10% of its capacity for its own campus research.

“This is a big step for Georgia Tech and for the scientific community,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing. “Nexus will help researchers make faster progress on today’s toughest problems — and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

The National Science Foundation has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:11:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Tue, 07/15/2025 - 10:11

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

What’s Next

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Mercury ID

683137

Source updated

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 10:10

New Quantum State Discovered in Trimer-Honeycomb Material

admin — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:56:55 +0000

New Quantum State Discovered in Trimer-Honeycomb Material admin Thu, 02/23/2023 - 17:56

A group of physicists, including two Georgia Tech researchers, have discovered a new quantum state. The study, published in the journal Nature, uncovered novel looping currents flowing along the edges of octahedral cells in a crystal of Mn3Si2Te6, which allowed for a billion percent increase in the material’s electric conductivity. The findings could lead to a new paradigm for quantum devices and superconductors.

The team consisted of Georgia Tech theoretical physicists Sami Hakani and Itamar Kimchi, along with experimental physicists Feng Ye (Oak Ridge National Lab), Lance DeLong (University of Kentucky), and, from the University of Colorado at Boulder: Gang Cao, Yifei Ni, Yu Zhang, and Hengdi Zhao. The group was drawn to the research after their previous study investigated the same material.

“Because this material did not fit any preexisting models, we had to develop new ideas to understand it,” said Georgia Tech graduate student Hakani, who played a key role in developing the theory. “These new ideas will help us study related materials that could be used for next-generation magnetic field devices.”

An Exception to the Rule

The physicists first became interested in the Mn3Si2Te6 material due to its unique electrical properties — in particular, a property called colossal magnetoresistance, an extreme enhancement in a material’s electrical conductivity when a magnetic field is applied.

In most materials, applying a magnetic field does not change that material’s conductivity. However, in another class of materials, applying a magnetic field does change conductivity; this is called magnetoresistance, and it can scale to “giant” and “colossal” changes in conductivity. In instances of colossal magnetoresistance, a material can change from behaving like an insulator (like Styrofoam) to being as conductive as a metal wire.

This change is not altogether unusual. Materials displaying giant magnetoresistance are not uncommon and are often used in computers; however, in all of these known materials, the material does not change its behavior in a way that significantly depends on the direction of the applied magnetic field. This new trimer-honeycomb material does.

“The phenomenon defies all existing theoretical models and experimental precedents,” said Kimchi, theoretical physicist and assistant professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech. And that’s where he and Hakani come in.

Uncovering Looping Currents

“As theoretical physicists, we develop new kinds of mathematical models,” said Kimchi. “When it’s qualitatively difficult to understand how anything can make sense in experimental data — when there’s something qualitatively shocking — we try to come up with that basic picture.”

Using the information uncovered by the experimental physicists, Hakani and Kimchi set out to understand why the extreme change in conductivity only happens when the magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the honeycomb-like surface of the material.

“Our idea smelled promising, but, unfortunately, we quickly realized that currents between the magnetic manganese ions would be forbidden by symmetry, which was discouraging,” said Kimchi. “However, Sami then did the symmetry analysis for the octahedrally arranged tellurium ions, and, for them, currents were symmetry-allowed and could work out!”

Viewed from above, the material looks like a series of two-dimensional honeycombs. From the side, however, the material is composed of “sheets,” like a layer cake. Within each “sheet” of honeycomb, electrons can move in circular paths around each octahedral cell. These looping, circular-moving currents within the material are responsible for the material’s unique behavior.

On its own, without a magnetic field present, electrons move both counterclockwise and clockwise around the honeycomb “cells,” like cars going in both directions around a roundabout. Just like in uncontrolled traffic, “traffic jams” make it difficult for electrons to move quickly throughout the material. Without a way to streamline traffic, the material acts more like an insulator.

However, if a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the honeycomb-like surface, a “flow of traffic” is established, and electrons navigate the loops more quickly. The material then acts as a conductor, showing a seven-magnitude increase in conductivity — equivalent to an increase of a billion percent.

A New Paradigm

The transformation from insulator to conductor can also be driven by applying electrical currents in the material, but in that case, it doesn’t happen instantaneously. It can take seconds or even minutes for the material to switch from insulator to conductor.

The team believes that this tunability and slower type of switching, coupled with the material’s sensitivity to currents, could lead to new applications and discoveries in current-controlled quantum devices, a field of devices that range from sensors to computers to secure communication.

The next step? Working to better understand the newly discovered quantum state, and finding other materials where the quantum state might exist.

“Looking forward, we hope to understand not only what makes this material special, but also which microscopic ingredients are needed for related materials to become useful quantum technologies in our future,” said Hakani.

Subtitle

The transformation allows for a billion percent increase in the material’s conductivity and could lead to a new paradigm for quantum devices.

Summary sentence

The transformation allows for a billion percent increase in the material’s conductivity and could lead to a new paradigm for quantum devices.

Summary

A group of physicists, including two Georgia Tech researchers, have discovered a new quantum state in trimer-honeycomb material. The transformation allows for a billion percent increase in the material’s conductivity and could lead to a new paradigm for quantum devices. The discovery builds on a previous study that first investigated the material, also known as Mn3Si2Te6, for its unusual and unique qualities.

Dateline

Thu, 02/23/2023 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

Contact

By: Selena Langner
Writer, College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

Media Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications, College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

Location

Atlanta, GA

Associated importer

Keywords

cos-quantum

School of Physics

quantum

quantum physics

quantum materials

loop currents

trimer honeycomb

Itamar Kimchi

Sami Hakani

go-researchnews

News room topics

Science and Technology

Core research areas

Electronics and Nanotechnology

Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure

Materials

Mercury ID

666016

Source updated

Thu, 02/23/2023 - 17:17

quantum materials

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

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Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

Keywords

News room topics

New Quantum State Discovered in Trimer-Honeycomb Material

An Exception to the Rule

Uncovering Looping Currents

A New Paradigm

Keywords

News room topics

Core research areas