Doudna Supercomputer is AI and Genomics Research\Newslooks\Washington DC\Mary Sidiqi\Evening Edition\A powerful new supercomputer named “Doudna” will be launched in 2025 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dell and Nvidia are working with the US Department of Energy on the project.
Quick Looks
The new AI-powered supercomputer named “Doudna” will be released in 2025 at Berkeley Lab. It is named after Crispr Pioneer and Nobel winner Jennifer Doudna. The US Energy Secretary and CEO Nvidia have announced the project together. Dell Technologies is contracted to build the system. Supports AI, high-performance computing, and genomics research. Participate in the Nobel Name System lineup at the lab. Hosted at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. The ranking of the top 500 supercomputer list is still unknown.
Deep look
A major leap of supercomputing and artificial intelligence is underway at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. There, a new system called “Doudna” is scheduled to be released in 2025. The machine is named after Jennifer Dou Donna, the University of California, and Jennifer Dou Donna, a professor at Berkeley. Online, Doudna represents not only a technical milestone, but also a symbolic blend of computing power and life science innovation.
Announced in a joint announcement by Dell Technologies, Energy Secretary of Dell Technologies, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Fan, the Doudna supercomputer is designed to advance scientific discovery at the intersection of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and genomics. Dell Technologies is contracted by the Department of Energy to build machines, and Nvidia offers cutting-edge AI accelerators and GPU-based computing architectures.
The system will be housed at Berkeley Lab’s National Energy Research and Science Computing Centre (NERSC), a facility that supports thousands of researchers around the world with simulation, modeling and large-scale data analysis capabilities. Doudna joins an elite family of supercomputers named after Nobel Prize winners, such as “Perlmutter” (astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter) and “Cori” (after biochemist Gerty Cori). This tradition continues with Doudna, reflecting the lab’s commitment to celebrating scientific heritage while promoting a future of innovation.
While NERSC’s past systems emphasized physical science and cosmological simulations, Doudna is optimized for a new era of life science computing, particularly in genomics and biomedical research. With the rise of precision medicine, synthetic biology, and AI-driven healthcare diagnostics, the need for infrastructure that can rapidly process and learn from huge biological data sets is more important than ever.
“Genomics Research is one of Doudna’s key use cases,” says Dion Harris, product executive for Nvidia’s AI and high performance computing division. “We’ll name the system just to make sense to those who revolutionized the field. It nods to her scientific legacy and the future we’re building.”
The timing is strategic. The convergence of AI and molecular biology is unlocking breakthroughs at an unprecedented pace. Large-scale language models that once focused solely on text are trained to predict protein structure, identify disease mutations, and identify cell behavior in the model. With next-generation GPUs, high-speed interconnects and deep integration with AI frameworks, machines like Doudna accelerate these processes and allow for research that was previously impossible due to computational limitations.
Since certain hardware specifications for Doudna have not yet been made public, it is unclear how they will be ranked on the top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. However, performance metrics can be secondary to system design purposes. Unlike speed-centric systems such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s El Capitan, which is currently ranked number one in the world, Doudna is optimized for throughput, parallel processing, and AI native applications. It positions it as a unique tool for researchers at the edge of bleeding, such as bioinformatics, pharmaceutical development, epidemiology and more.
The initiative has a wider geopolitical and strategic significance. In a global race for AI and calculation advantage, the US prioritizes investing in National Institute infrastructure to maintain leadership. The Doudna project is consistent with its goals, reflecting its commitment to ensuring that it is not only technically outperforms its competitors, but also to solve key challenges from public health to climate resilience.
At the same time, there is a powerful symbolic message in naming a system. Jennifer Dodona’s contribution to CRISPR transformed genetics and raised ethical questions about the future of gene editing, therapy, and human biology. Associating her name with one of the nation’s most advanced supercomputers confirms broader cultural perceptions. The future of science is written not only in code but in DNA, but also in the two fields that are increasingly converging.
It also shows the key moments of expression in STEM. For decades, computing systems, especially those in government labs – have usually been named after men. By honoring female scientists still active in her field, the Department of Energy emphasizes the importance of inclusion, fairness and visibility in naming tools that define the next era of science.
Doudna’s arrival suggests a fundamental rethinking of the purpose of supercomputing. As these giant machines are primarily used for physics simulation, nuclear research and weather modeling, supercomputers today are becoming engines for deciphering the human genome, designing new antibiotics, modeling pandemics, and even mapping microbiomes. Doudna allows scientists to go beyond traditional linear research methods, using AI to detect patterns, generate hypotheses, and iterate discoveries at speed and scale.
From the lab on the hills of Berkeley, its impacts spill outwardly across the nation and around the world. Research institutions, biotechnology startups, government health agencies, and even education partners can benefit from open access times on machines, particularly in joint or grant-funded projects. As AI’s capabilities expand, so does the range of computational things. Doudna aims to be a hub for its innovation.
Over the next few years, the name “Doudna” could become synonymous with scientific exploration powered by a whole new class of AI, as well as gene editing. Whether deciphering the secrets of rare diseases, optimizing sustainable agriculture, or simulating living cell behavior, the work carried out in this system can change the very nature of how science is carried out.
As Secretary Wright emphasized in his remarks, this is more than just a government supercomputer. “With Doudna, it lays the foundation for American science for the next century,” he said. “It’s about solving things that can’t be solved, and doing it faster than ever.”
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