“Thanks to President Donald Trump,” Nvidia, Oracle to build DOE’s 2.2 Exaflop AI Supercomputer

Key Points: 

• The new system, named Solstice, is a multi-billion dollar commitment to challenging technological advancements by rivals, particularly China, in the foundational AI research and development space.
• Featuring a record-breaking 100,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, Solstice is designed to deliver staggering performance for training and deploying next-generation frontier AI models
• The project is a landmark public-private partnership, using the vast cloud infrastructure of Oracle to deliver sovereign, high-performance AI capabilities to the DOE and its network of national laboratories

Tech giants Nvidia and Oracle are partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to build what is being billed as America’s biggest AI supercomputer, a crucial piece of infrastructure that signals a major pivot in national technology strategy under the Trump administration

The construction of Solstice, located at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, is not merely an upgrade to existing scientific equipment; it is a direct investment in the future of national security and economic power.6The system, along with a smaller sibling named Equinox, will deliver a combined 2,200 exaflops of AI performance. 

The massive, dedicated national supercomputer fundamentally changes the balance of power in foundational AI research. Access to such high-end computing, often referred to as AI factories, is the bottleneck for training the largest, most sophisticated foundation models, the kind of general-purpose AI that can rapidly accelerate discovery across multiple fields.

Accelerating Dual-Use Breakthroughs

The immense computing capability is expected to accelerate breakthroughs with immediate military and economic applications.

Historically, supercomputers were initially developed for dual-use purposes, primarily for national security applications like nuclear weapons design and cryptography. Solstice will continue this tradition while targeting new frontiers. According to a statement from the DOE, the system will “supercharge” advances in nuclear power, fusion energy, and national security technologies. 

Why it Matters

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright highlighted that the supercomputers could bring about practical pathways to harness fusion energy in the next two or three years by simulating unstable plasmas far more accurately than before. A reliable, clean fusion source would provide an unmatched economic and geopolitical advantage.

The systems are also critical for managing the U.S. nuclear arsenal through virtual testing and simulation, a task that has relied on supercomputing since the moratorium on physical testing began. Advanced AI models trained on Solstice could also enhance cryptanalysis and intelligence-gathering capabilities. 

On the economic front, the system is designed to compress years of research into shorter timeframes, enabling ultra-fast drug discovery by simulating cancer treatments down to the molecular level, as noted in a recent report by the Times of India.

The Public-Private Architecture

The partnership itself is a political and technical statement. The DOE is deploying a new public-private model that blends government and industry investment. The Solstice system will feature 100,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, the latest generation of the essential hardware for modern AI supremacy.

The choice of Oracle to house the infrastructure is equally significant. Oracle is positioning its cloud infrastructure (OCI) as a core provider for sovereign, high-performance AI capabilities. This public-private fusion enables the government to bring powerful supercomputers online faster than traditional procurement models allow, leveraging the scale and speed of private tech infrastructure.

As CEO of Oracle, Clay Magouyrk stated: “Our collaboration at Argonne, tapping into the power of OCI, will provide a critical resource to address the nation’s most complex challenges and accelerate the next wave of scientific breakthroughs,” according to an Nvidia press release.

Challenging China

This massive investment is a direct response to the intensifying global competition with China for technological leadership. While the U.S. leads in overall chip design and foundational AI models, China has heavily invested in its own supercomputing centers and state-led AI development programs.

The Trump administration views this move as solidifying America’s technological leadership. According to the Energy Department’s announcement, the new partnership reflects “President Trump’s commitment to securing America’s leadership in AI and science” and turning “shared innovation into national strength.”