Building a Replica of a Nuclear Reactor

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"Frontier" is modeling and simulating how new designs for smaller-scale nuclear reactors would function. The team are basically using frontier to stress test these by building a replica and then they test it out trying to actually make them at scale. There's multiple reasons that we want to do these simulations, but the largest factor really is cost.

Last May, the Oak Ridge National Lab, run by the US Department of Energy, unveiled Frontier–the world's fastest supercomputer. It’s capable of performing a quintillion calculations per second, breaking what's called the exascale barrier.

The system requires its own power plant, 6,000 gallons of water to keep it cool, and a highly trained staff to operate. So what can it do? And who gets to use it?

We set out for Knoxville, Tennessee to try to wrap our brains around Frontier’s limitless potential.

See more about Frontier here: It Takes 6,000 Gallons of Water to Cool the World’s Fastest Supercomputer

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