Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - Background

Background

LLNL is self-described as "a premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security." Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering and technology. The Laboratory also applies its special expertise and multidisciplinary capabilities to preventing the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, bolstering homeland security and solving other nationally important problems, including energy and environmental security, basic science and economic competitiveness.

LLNL is home to many unique facilities and a number of the most powerful computer systems in the world, according to the TOP500 list, including Blue Gene/L, the world's fastest computer from 2004 until Los Alamos National Laboratory's IBM Roadrunner supercomputer surpassed it in 2008. On 6/18/2012, LLNL re-took the lead on the latest edition of the list of the world’s Top 500 supercomputers with Sequoia, a 16.32 petaflops system packing more than 1.5 million custom Power cores. It is based on the same IBM BlueGene/Q architecture used in three other top ten systems which also were the most power efficient on the list. The Lab is a leader in technical innovation: since 1978, LLNL has received a total of 118 prestigious R&D 100 Awards, including five in 2007. The awards are given annually by the editors of R&D Magazine to the most innovative ideas of the year.

The Laboratory is located on a one-square-mile (2.6 km2) site at the eastern edge of Livermore, California. It also operates a 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) remote experimental test site, called Site 300, situated about 15 miles (24 km) southeast of the main Lab site. LLNL has an annual budget of about US$1.5 billion and a staff of roughly 7,000 employees.