(AGENPARL) - Roma, 12 Dicembre 2025 - (AGENPARL) – Fri 12 December 2025 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews
items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for
the content in the links below.
LLNL Report, Dec. 12, 2025
LLNL director Kim Budil and AI Innovation Incubator director Brian Spears
describe examples of AI-powered research and emphasize the important role DOE
labs can play. (Photo courtesy of SCSP)
Answering the AI call
Bay Area laboratories are set to play a central role in the Genesis Mission,
a multibillion-dollar effort by the Trump administration to accelerate the
nation’s artificial intelligence push in the face of technological advances
in China.
The involvement of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory and the SLAC National Accelerator Lab in Menlo Park could
help ensure the region’s positioning in the AI boom as the project seeks to
“double the productivity and impact of American science and engineering
within a decade,” according to the Department of Energy.
“China has fired their starter pistol and has organized what you would call
the equivalent of their public sector. This is our answer to that,” said
Brian Spears, the technical director of the Genesis Mission leading the
scientific and engineering foundation at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. “This mission gives us a central, coherent and focused effort at
scale in order to take advantage of what we can do.”
The cryogenic-compatible X-ray, neutron and blast snout (CryoXNBS) safely
houses material samples to be subjected to fusion ignition irradiation
environments. (Photo: Jason Laurea/LLNL)
The ultimate stress test
https://www..photonics.com/Articles/LNLL-Holds-Nuclear-Weapon-Stress-Test-at-NIF/p5/a71732
A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) team held an experiment at
the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to test the ability of U.S. nuclear
weapons to survive encounters with adversary missile defenses and reach their
targets. The experiment demonstrated the capability to analyze nuclear
materials under extreme conditions, advancing the modernization of the U.S.
nuclear stockpile.
The experiment saw weapons-grade plutonium exposed to intense, pulsed
thermonuclear neutron radiation in a safe and controlled laboratory setting
at NIF. The conditions simulated some of the conditions that a U.S. weapon
could encounter from enemy defense systems and provides data to assess the
resilience of strategic weapons such was the W87-1 warhead in hostile threat
environments.
During the experiment, 2.06 MJ of laser energy were delivered to a target,
resulting in a fusion yield of 3.6 MJ. The results showed the consistency of
the ignition platform and demonstrated its use as an intense neutron source
for survivability studies.
Read More
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/LNLL-Holds-Nuclear-Weapon-Stress-Test-at-NIF/p5/a71732
The team demonstrated that true real-time, physics-based tsunami forecasting
is computationally achievable at exascale. (Image: Team Cascadia)
Early warning, maximum benefit
https://www.independentnews.com/news/livermore_news/tsunami-forecasting-team-captures-computing-prize/article_30090ee9-df08-447c-af05-8e047eeebce7.html
The speed and reliability of tsunami forecasts may soon benefit from work
performed on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s)
supercomputer El Capitan, buying more time for coastal communities to prepare
for the destructive events.
A team of researchers from LLNL, the University of Texas (UT) Austin’s Oden
Institute and the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution
of Oceanography last month won the 2025 Gordon Bell Prize for work leveraging
the Livermore supercomputer to build a set of simulations for tsunami
forecasts.
By performing this computationally intensive work ahead of time on El
Capitan, more modest computers can now use the simulations for real-time
tsunami early warning systems.
Tsunami forecasting previously traded off accuracy for speed, either taking
several days to complete or approximating the physics involved, LLNL
computational mathematician Tzanio Kolev said.
“Our approach is unique because it is both accurate and fast enough for
real-time response — we ultimately get an accurate solution, but only in a
fraction of a second,” Kolev said.
Read More
https://www.independentnews.com/news/livermore_news/tsunami-forecasting-team-captures-computing-prize/article_30090ee9-df08-447c-af05-8e047eeebce7.html
Researchers at LLNL and their collaborators developed a new process for
magnet fabrication that skips two major, energy-intensive steps and doesn’t
produce harmful byproducts. (Graphic: Dan Herchek/LLNL)
Making magnets without China
https://scienceblog.com/energy-efficient-process-delivers-rare-earth-magnets/
Researchers have developed a new method for producing neodymium metal that
could dramatically reduce costs while addressing critical supply chain
vulnerabilities in the United States.
The so-called chloride molten salt electrolysis process skips two
energy-intensive manufacturing steps and produces no harmful emissions,
potentially transforming how America sources materials essential for electric
vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems.
The work, led by teams at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Case
Western Reserve University, and Ames National Laboratory, comes at a moment
when China’s dominance over rare earth processing has become a pressing
national security concern. In April 2025, China imposed export restrictions
on seven rare earth elements, and subsequent expansions added five more
elements with extraterritorial provisions requiring export licenses for
products made anywhere if they contain Chinese materials or technologies.
When Beijing tightened these controls, automakers including Ford and Suzuki
faced immediate production disruptions.
Read More
https://scienceblog.com/energy-efficient-process-delivers-rare-earth-magnets/
Although LLNL’s main campus fits into a one-square-mile footprint, the
Laboratory has an outsized impact.
Keeping up with the Labbies
What’s cooking at the Livermore Lab
Combing through my inbox and social media, I see a half dozen announcements
from LLNL about intriguing accomplishments that we haven’t had a chance to
cover in recent weeks — and that’s just the news they want us to hear
about … wink.
Of course half the time I barely understand like a quarter of what lab
officials are talking about in their press releases, but let me take a shot
at a cogent recap. Because it’s important for us to report on the
happenings at the compound off East Avenue, considering LLNL (like its
neighbor, Sandia National Laboratories) is an economic engine of not only
Livermore, but the entire Tri-Valley.
The big news came out the Monday before Thanksgiving, with LLNL joining the
16 other U.S. Department of Energy national labs (and private industry and
academia partners) on the Genesis Mission. Since that major announcement,
LLNL has issued two other press releases about scientific milestones.
Read More
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Administration.
Read previous Lab Report articles online https://www.llnl.gov/news/lab-report
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