Quick Hits

*** A data storage system for the first U.S. computer capable 1 quintillion calculations per second, aren't off the shelf material, so Argonne National Labs wants ideas from industry on how to make one.

Last summer, the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago said it would house Aurora, the first the first U.S. computer capable of 1exaflop performance. Intel Corporation and Cray expect to deliver the computer in 2021 on a contract worth more than $500 million. In a request for information issued on April 21, Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) asked for ideas for a the a storage solution that will provide the bandwidth, reliability and scalability required for the next-generation of HPC systems, that could be moved into production in the second quarter of 2022.

*** Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee want the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management to explain what the agency has done to harmonize its various rounds of human resources guidance across the federal enterprise in the COVID-19 response. In an April 27 letter, led by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, the lawmakers also want to know what OPM has done to identify frontline workers and make sure they have access to protective equipment on the job.