DOE gives six tech giants HPC research funds

Six large tech firms will take part in an Energy Department program that seeks to create the U.S.' first exascale computer by 2021.

Six technology giants have received funds from the Energy Department to accelerate research in support of U.S. efforts to create the country's first exascale supercomputer by 2021, our sister publication FCW.com reports.

Advanced Micro Devices, Cray Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Intel Corp. and NVIDIA Corp. will participate in the Exascale Computing Project, which falls under DOE's PathForward program for high-performance computing development.

DOE will award $258 million in funds over three years and each company will kick in their own contributions that amount to at least 40 percent of their total project cost. That brings the total investment to at least $430 million.

China currently hosts the world's most powerful high-performance computing system that was unveiled last year.