Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific community to accelerate discovery.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2006
- HeadquartersArgonne, United States
- Headcount51–100
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Argonne Leadership Computing Facility does
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated by Ucore Technologies under contract with UChicago LLC at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. Established in 2006, ALCF provides leadership-class high-performance computing resources to the open scientific research community, allocating compute time through peer-reviewed programs (INCITE, ALCC, APEX) and, more recently, through the NAIRR Pilot for AI-focused research. Its user base stood at 2,103 across U.S. universities, national laboratories, and industry research groups as of 2025, with approximately 1,500 active projects.
ALCF's core technical portfolio centers on the Aurora exascale supercomputer, complemented by the Polaris, Sophia, Minerva, Janus, and Crux systems, and an AI Testbed that exposes multiple accelerator architectures (Cerebras, SambaNova, Groq, Graphcore). New systems including Solstice and Equinox and an NVIDIA B200-based Minerva partition were deployed in the 2024–2025 window, alongside an ALCF Inference Service and the AskALCF chatbot. ALCF also develops in-house AI assets, notably the AuroraGPT foundation model and ChemGraph agentic workflows.
As a federally funded User Facility, ALCF does not generate commercial revenue. Its operations are sustained by DOE appropriations channeled through UChicago LLC, with access granted to researchers free of charge through competitive allocation. The strategic role of ALCF has expanded from pure HPC capacity provision toward integrated AI infrastructure and AI-as-a-service capabilities for the U.S. scientific community, exemplified by its Genesis Mission partnership with NVIDIA and Oracle.
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
- Legal name
- Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
- Website
- https://alcf.anl.gov/
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2006
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 51–100 employees
- Short description
- Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific community to accelerate discovery.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility industry classification
Industry- Product category
- High-Performance Computing Services
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services (54169)
- SIC
- Electronic Computers (3571), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Research Computing & High-Performance Computing (HPC) User Support (EDALAMAK)
Keywords
Where Argonne Leadership Computing Facility is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Argonne
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- DOE Office of Science User Facility: ALCF operates as a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility, providing supercomputing resources and expertise to the research community through awards of compute time. As a government-funded research facility, ALCF does not generate commercial revenue but operates under DOE's Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility product offering
Product offeringCore offering
ALCF provides leadership-class supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific research community through a portfolio of HPC systems including the Aurora exascale supercomputer, Polaris, Sophia, and the ALCF AI Testbed. Access is awarded free of charge through peer-reviewed allocation programs (INCITE, ALCC, APEX, NAIRR Pilot) to researchers from academia, industry, and government agencies. The facility also offers the ALCF Inference Service for AI foundation models, workflow tools, storage infrastructure, and training programs to support open scientific discovery.
Product overview
The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) is a DOE Office of Science User Facility that provides breakthrough computing and AI resources to the research community. The facility operates a portfolio of supercomputing systems led by the Aurora exascale supercomputer, complemented by Polaris, Sophia, Minerva, Janus, and Crux for various simulation, AI training, and inference workloads. The ALCF AI Testbed provides access to emerging AI accelerators including Cerebras, SambaNova, GroqRack, and Graphcore. The ALCF Inference Service offers OpenAI-compatible API access to foundation models including AuroraGPT, LLaMA, Gemma, and GPT-OSS. Integrated workflow tools, data sharing platforms (ACDC, Eagle, Globus), and allocation programs (INCITE, ALCC, APEX, NAIRR) support researchers across disciplines from materials science to cosmology. The Genesis Mission initiative connects these resources into an integrated ecosystem for AI-driven scientific discovery.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Aurora Exascale Supercomputer One of the world's first exascale supercomputers developed in partnership with Intel and HPE, capable of performing over one quintillion calculations per second with 10,624 nodes, 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max Series, and 21,248 Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors. Available to researchers from academia, industry, and government via allocation programs.
- Polaris Supercomputer HPE Apollo 6500 Gen 10+ system delivering 34 petaflops peak performance with AMD EPYC Milan processors and NVIDIA A100 GPUs, designed for large-scale simulations, AI, and data analysis.
- Sophia AI Inference System NVIDIA DGX A100-based system with 3.9 petaflops performance, 24 nodes comprising 8 NVIDIA A100 GPUs each with 320GB total memory, designed for AI inference workloads.
- Minerva AI Inference System AI inference system equipped with 64 NVIDIA B200 GPUs (8 per node across 8 nodes), delivering 72 PF FP8 / 144 PF FP4 peak performance, coming online in 2026.
- Janus AI Workforce Development System AI workforce development system built with HPE featuring 64 NVIDIA H100 GPUs across 16 compute nodes, delivering 1920 FP64 teraFLOPS.
- Crux Pre/Post-Processing System HPE Cray Ex system delivering 1.18 petaflops with 256 AMD EPYC nodes for pre- and post-processing tasks including experimental data analysis.
- ALCF AI Testbed Infrastructure for evaluating next-generation AI accelerators including Cerebras CS-3, SambaNova DataScale SN30, GroqRack, Graphcore Bow Pod64, and Tenstorrent Galaxy systems for scientific research applications.
- ALCF Inference Service Provides researchers with access to a wide range of AI models running on dedicated ALCF systems (Sophia, Metis, Minerva) through web-based interfaces and OpenAI-compatible APIs, enabling analysis of large datasets, scientific publication insights, code generation, and AI-enabled workflows.
- Metis AI Inference System SambaNova DataScale platform used for AI inference workloads as part of the ALCF Inference Service, supporting foundation models and large language models.
- ALCF Storage and Networking Infrastructure High-performance data storage including Flare (100 PB Lustre), Eagle (100 PB campaign storage), tape archives (~186 PB), and InfiniBand/Ethernet networking infrastructure for scientific datasets.
- AskALCF AI Support Chatbot AI-powered assistant that helps users quickly answer questions about using ALCF computing resources, providing automated documentation and support for the research community.
Quantifiable outcome
- Reduced simulation time from months/years to days
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
Customer profileNamed customers9 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability13 records
Feature6 records
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core, secondary and minor.
- University of Notre DamecoreInaugural APEX program project led by University of Notre Dame researchers leveraging Aurora exascale supercomputer to develop AI frameworks for automating analysis of large-scale computational fluid dynamics simulations using knowledge graphs and LLM-based agents.
- Oak Ridge Leadership Computing FacilitycoreALCF and OLCF are the two DOE Leadership Computing Facilities, operating leadership-class supercomputers for open science. Together they form the DOE Leadership Computing program.
- IntelcoreIntel partnered with ALCF and HPE to develop Aurora exascale supercomputer, providing Intel Xeon Max Series CPUs and Data Center GPU Max Series GPUs.
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)coreHPE developed the Cray EX supercomputer platform for Aurora in partnership with ALCF and Intel. Also collaborated on Polaris (Apollo 6500 Gen10+).
- Globus LabscoreALCF partnered with Globus Labs to develop workflow tools that run effectively on ALCF machines, providing data management and compute platform capabilities.
- CerebrassecondaryCerebras CS-3 with wafer-scale engine available through ALCF AI Testbed for researchers to evaluate machine learning applications on AI accelerators.
- SambaNovasecondarySambaNova DataScale SN30 and SN40L systems available through ALCF AI Testbed and AI Inference Service for AI training and inference workloads.
- GroqsecondaryGroqRack inference system available through ALCF AI Testbed for evaluating AI accelerator performance for HPC applications.
- GraphcoresecondaryGraphcore Bow Pod64 with Intelligent Processing Units available through ALCF AI Testbed for AI accelerator evaluation.
- World Wide TechnologysecondaryWTT collaborated with ALCF on development of Minerva system for AI inference, equipped with NVIDIA B200 GPUs.
- United LimousineminorContracted ground transportation provider familiar with Argonne security processes for visitors needing transportation to the facility.
- NVIDIA and OraclecoreDOE, Argonne, NVIDIA and Oracle landmark public-private partnership to develop Solstice and Equinox AI systems for the Genesis Mission, marking important steps in expanding the nation's AI infrastructure for science.
Scale indicators9 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF): The other half of the DOE Leadership Computing Facility program, operating the Frontier exascale supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Directly comparable mission (open-science HPC), funding model (DOE ASCR), and user community.
- National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC): DOE Office of Science user facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory operating the Perlmutter supercomputer. Comparable mission of providing HPC resources to open scientific research, with similar allocation-based access model.
- Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): Operates the Frontera and Stampede3 systems for open scientific research, with similar allocation-based access model and university-led research focus. Highly comparable in scale and mission though smaller than ALCF's leadership-class capability.
- Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC): Joint Carnegie Mellon–University of Pittsburgh HPC center operating Bridges-2 and Neocortex systems. Comparable mission supporting academic and government researchers via peer-reviewed allocations.
- NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division: Operates Aitken and Electra supercomputers for NASA mission-aligned scientific computing. Comparable government-funded leadership-class HPC user facility serving mission-specific research, though narrower in scientific scope.
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA): University of Illinois-based HPC center providing Delta, HAL, and forthcoming systems to US academic researchers via NSF ACCESS allocations. Comparable mission and access model, though smaller scale than ALCF.
Regional players
- RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS): Japan's premier HPC center operating the Fugaku supercomputer. Comparable leadership-class open-science mission but operates in a different geographic/research funding ecosystem.
- Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS): Operates the Alps and formerly Piz Daint systems for Swiss and European scientific research. Comparable leadership-class HPC user facility model serving open scientific research in a different geographic ecosystem.
- Jülich Supercomputing Centre: German national HPC center operating JUWELS and is part of the PRACE European HPC ecosystem. Comparable leadership-class capability for academic and government scientific users in Europe.
Others
- Cerebras Systems: AI hardware vendor whose wafer-scale CS-3 system is hosted in ALCF's AI Testbed. Adjacent enabler relationship — Cerebras provides accelerator technology that ALCF evaluates and exposes to its scientific user community.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility social profiles
Digital presenceArgonne Leadership Computing Facility financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles8 records
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
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Argonne Leadership Computing Facility M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
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Frequently asked questions about Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
What does Argonne Leadership Computing Facility do?
ALCF provides leadership-class supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific research community through a portfolio of HPC systems including the Aurora exascale supercomputer, Polaris, Sophia, and the ALCF AI Testbed. Access is awarded free of charge through peer-reviewed allocation programs (INCITE, ALCC, APEX, NAIRR Pilot) to researchers from academia, industry, and government agencies. The facility also offers the ALCF Inference Service for AI foundation models, workflow tools, storage infrastructure, and training programs to support open scientific discovery.
Is Argonne Leadership Computing Facility a public or private company?
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility is a private company. It is classified as state government owned and is currently operating.
When was Argonne Leadership Computing Facility founded?
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility was founded in 2006. It employs 51 to 100 people.
Where is Argonne Leadership Computing Facility based?
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility is headquartered in Argonne, United States, in the North America region.
How does Argonne Leadership Computing Facility make money?
One revenue line is on record: DOE Office of Science User Facility.
Who are Argonne Leadership Computing Facility's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division and National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Regional players are RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) and Jülich Supercomputing Centre. Cerebras Systems is listed as an others.
Does Argonne Leadership Computing Facility have an API?
Yes. The ALCF Inference Service provides OpenAI-compatible APIs for accessing state-of-the-art open-source models running on dedicated ALCF hardware. Users with Argonne or ALCF credentials can authenticate via Globus. The service provides API access to various models including Google's Gemma series, Meta's LLaMA models, and OpenAI's GPT-OSS family, as well as domain-specific foundation models, computer vision models, and in-house models developed at Argonne such as AuroraGPT. Available to users from other DOE laboratories on request. Developer documentation is at docs.alcf.anl.gov/services/inference-endpoints.
What industry is Argonne Leadership Computing Facility in?
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility's product category is High-Performance Computing Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDALAMAK, Research Computing & High-Performance Computing (HPC) User Support. Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 3571.