NERSC Seeks Industry Partners for Collaborative Research

The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has launched a private sector partnership program (PSP) to make its computing capabilities available to industry partners working in key technology areas.

Led by David Skinner, NERSC's Strategic Partnerships Lead, the PSP is intended to give commercial technology developers working in energy, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy sources and transportation access to NERSC’s supercomputers, customer support and data management expertise. Participating companies will be able to use these resources for modeling, simulation and data analysis to aid in product design, development, quality control and data analytics.

"NERSC is interested in working with companies developing technologies that support DOE missions,” Skinner said.

Partners will also be able to work directly with NERSC’s computing experts—“a very sought after NERSC resource,” he added.

Being located in the San Francisco Bay Area gives NERSC easy access to one of the most prolific technology development areas in the country: Silicon Valley.

“We would like to leverage local opportunities and engage significantly with Silicon Valley industries,” Skinner said.

One Bay Area company already taking advantage of the new program is QuantumScape, a San Jose-based startup that is commercializing technology licensed from Stanford to create batteries that are energy dense and safer than standard lithium ion batteries. Volkswagen recently took a 5% stake in QuantumScape and plans to invest in battery technology as a way to boost the range of electric cars and compete with companies like Tesla Motors, according to news reports. QuantumScape has an initial allocation of 600,000 supercomputing hours at NERSC.

“We have had industry users at NERSC for many years, but most of the principal investigators (PIs) are lab or academia based,” Skinner said. “We are now encouraging PIs who are industry-based to come work with NERSC. This will allow deeper participation by industry and give NERSC deeper participation in the technology transfer process.”

NERSC has been serving scientific teams with scientific computing and data services for 40 years. The center leads the field in reliable and advanced computing, serving over 5,000 scientists across the U.S. Read more about who uses NERSC here.

NERSC resources are open and accessible through DOE allocations for small businesses, energy-related research and co-design technology partnerships. If your research could benefit from HPC or you have questions about the PSP program, visit the web page.