Back when the Titan supercomputer award was announced (October 2011), there was a slightly embarrassing and awkward period of time during which Oak Ridge had no solid plans for where the expanded Jaguar system would call home. The word on the street was that there was no room at the inn, and while the system development had funded, the budget for facility expansion at the Lab fell through the cracks.

Facilities for exascale-class systems will require innovative, fresh thinking and can’t be treated as an afterthought. With the number of cabinets, processors, racks, cables, and power connections required, the facility work will need to start years ahead of the first systems being available.

The folks at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), demonstrating their usual keen understanding of strategic planning, not to mention the courage of their convictions, have announced plans for a new computing facility capable of eventually housing two exascale supercomputers.