One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world is going to be built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory thanks to a $65 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

This is the largest grant UT has ever received, which is partnered with ORNL to build the supercomputer.

Thomas Zacharia, vice president for science and technology at UT and ORNL associate lab director for computing and computational sciences, is leading the project.

The new supercomputer will be capable of nearly 1,000 trillion calculations per second and will give researchers the tools they need to conduct transformational research in a variety of fields, according to UT Media Relations.

The supercomputer will be able to:

• simulate the formation of supernova more realistically
• simulate the evolution of the galaxy and black hole mergers
• more efficiently predict extreme weather, effects of pollution, long-term climate change and detailed simulations of the earth's interior
• design useful materials

Other fields, such as chemistry, biochemistry, particle physics, engineering and computer science, can develop new solutions to old problems.

About half of the grant, issued by the NSF's Office of Cyber Infrastructure, is going to the construction of the supercomputer as well as hardware, while $35 million is going to its operation and upkeep for the next five years.