NETL Director Marianne Walck addressed Carnegie Mellon University during its 2025 Energy Week, highlighting how the Lab is leveraging its high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) research capabilities to accelerate energy technology discovery and development.

Integrating AI and machine learning (ML) can accelerate decision-making and scientific discovery, making the research and development more efficient and delivering new technologies to the market and users faster.

Addressing CMU Energy Week as a keynote speaker, Walck discussed NETL’s Joule, a high-performance computer that serves the research and development needs for the Lab and its project sponsors and partners. Supercomputing allows NETL researchers to simulate phenomena that are difficult or impossible to otherwise measure and observe. Faster supercomputers enable more accurate simulations, generating greater confidence in using simulation results for decision-making. This simulation-based engineering approach helps NETL reduce the cost and time of technology development at every stage, speeding the discovery of new materials, increasing the reliability and performance of novel devices, and reducing the risk inherent in scale-up processes.

Walck detailed how NETL and California-based project partner Cerebras Systems are employing advanced computing and modeling to accelerate solution speeds to record-setting levels. The Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) Field Equation Application Programming Interface (WFA), developed by NETL and Cerebras Systems and deployed to Cerebras Systems’ WSE, can tackle tough computational problems in materials discovery, molecular dynamics, heat transfer, subsurface dispersion and more.

NETL’s advanced computing and AI clusters are complemented by the Energy Data eXchange® (EDX) the Department of Energy (DOE)/Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s (FECM) virtual library and data laboratory built to find, connect, curate, enable AI and other use and re-use of digital products to advance energy research and development. Created by and maintained by NETL, EDX supports the entire life cycle of data and digital products by offering secure, private collaborative workspaces for ongoing research projects until they mature and become catalogued, curated, and published for public access.

Walck also highlighted NETL’s Science-based Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Institute (SAMI), which leverages science-based models, AI/ML methods, data analytics and high-performance computing to accelerate applied technology development for clean, efficient, and affordable energy production and utilization. These advances empower NETL to push the frontiers of AI technology and create next generation architectures, tools, and approaches, expand partnerships to advance the development and adoption of AI, and foster AI workforce development.

Carnegie Mellon’s Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation is leading the nation in facilitating discussion and driving the American energy economy into the future. As its flagship event, CMU Energy Week brings energy and sustainability leaders, including scholars, investors and entrepreneurs from across the nation, to Carnegie Mellon University to combine forces and exchange ideas on the world’s most pressing issues in energy.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory dedicated to advancing the nation's energy future by creating innovative solutions that strengthen the security, affordability and reliability of energy systems and natural resources. With laboratories in Albany, Oregon; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, NETL creates advanced energy technologies that support DOE’s mission while fostering collaborations that will lead to a resilient and abundant energy future for the nation.