AMD has announced that is was selected for an award of US $3.1 million to do a research project associated with the US Department of Energy (DOE) Extreme-Scale Computing research and Development Program, known as "DesignForward." The new DOE award is an expansion of work of previous two-year award AMD received in 2012 called FastForward which aimed to accelerate research needed to support extreme-scale computing while DesignForward will bring research in interconnect architectures needed for data transfer capabilities in those same environments.

The project is a jointly funded collaboration between the DOE Office of Science and the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that aims toward Exascale computing, or supercomputers that are expected to be capable of performing computation hundreds of times faster than today's fastest computers, with only slightly higher power utilization.

According to Alan Lee, AMD's Corporate Vice President of Research and Advanced Development :""This award will enable AMD to continue important research to help realize the enormous potential of extreme-scale computing. We believe that our expertise in processors, memory, and interconnect technology can help further this groundbreaking research in large-scale systems. Also, as founding members of the Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation, we are offering a mechanism to share our insights to benefit the industry-wide advancement of standard, open systems."

The DOE's strategic plan to address some of the most pressing scientific challenges include priorities like advancing medical research, alternative energy and energy storage materials, industrial design and more precise models for climate and weather change.

Source: AMD.com.