(AGENPARL) – Fri 27 February 2026 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, Feb. 27, 2026
Like other supercomputers, Sierra was girthy. She was composed of thousands
of compute nodes, stored one on top of another in racks. (Photo: Randy Wong)
Sierra signs off
https://www.wired.com/story/why-sierra-the-supercomputer-had-to-die/
It was the government that decided it was time for Sierra to die. Sierra, it
must be said, was a supercomputer, and so had never really been alive in the
first place. But by any objective measure, she lived an impressive life. She
resided in northern California at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
where she was minded by dozens of staff at the lab’s computing complex, in
Building 453. She completed her final jobs late last year, in October, before
she went offline for good. She was 7 years old.
According to the TOP500, which ranks these mega-machines, Sierra was once the
second-fastest supercomputer in the world. She was conceived in a Chicago
hotel conference room more than a decade ago, at a technical discussion for
officials from America’s national labs. The ultimate designer baby, Sierra
was assembled from thousands of IBM Power9 CPUs and Nvidia Volta V100
GPUs—a daring, offbeat architecture for Livermore at the time.
Read More
https://www.wired.com/story/why-sierra-the-supercomputer-had-to-die/
LLNL’s popular lecture series will continue through Feb. 28 at Las Positas
College in Livermore, Calif.
Saturdays are for science

Livermore Lab holds “Science on Saturday” at LPC

The presentation was brief, but the possibilities were endless — stretching
far beyond the walls of the 4000 building at Las Positas College.
On the morning of Feb. 14, hundreds of people filed into the Mertes Center
for the Arts to attend a presentation by the Lawrence Livermore National Lab
(LLNL). High school and college students, parents with small children, and
older adults alike all sat and listened intently to the scientist on stage,
Dan Faissol, Ph.D.
Faissol explained how LLNL scientists use artificial intelligence (AI) tools
in the fight against disease. His presentation was part of a series of
lectures happening every Saturday during the month of February, in which
different LLNL scientists teach about various topics in the scientific field.
“Antibodies are made in the laboratory, and they’re given to people,”
Faissol said. “We can make these antibodies and give it to them and protect
them from these viruses. … (The coronavirus) is trying to evolve, it’s
trying to change the shape of its microprotein, so that our antibodies
don’t bind to it anymore.”
Read More

Livermore Lab holds “Science on Saturday” at LPC

Budil leads a workforce of approximately 9,000 employees and manages an
annual operating budget of $3.25 billion.
Budil elected to National Academy of Engineering
https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/kim-budil-uc-davis-alum-and-llnl-director-elected-national-academy-engineering
Kim Budil, M.S. ’88, Ph.D. ’94, has been elected as a member of the National
Academy of Engineering, or NAE, one of the highest professional distinctions
in the field
Recognized for “advancing nuclear deterrence through technical
contributions, laboratory leadership and advice to the government,” Budil
joins only 2,890 NAE members worldwide.
“I am deeply honored to be recognized with election to the National Academy
of Engineering,” said Budil, who currently serves as the 13th director of
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “I have been fortunate to spend
my career in the national laboratory system, and I am proud to represent an
extraordinary institution that uses leading edge science and engineering to
create solutions to critical national security needs. I am very proud to join
this distinguished community.”
Budil received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in engineering and applied
science from the University of California, Davis, where she was a Hertz
Fellow and received a Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal in 2019. 
Read More
https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/kim-budil-uc-davis-alum-and-llnl-director-elected-national-academy-engineering
The direction-finding algorithm acts as a “distance formula” for large
data tables. (Image: Yepez et al.)
What direction is this data?
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-noisy-2d-algorithm-imaging-ai.html
A team has developed a new algorithm to help scientists determine direction
in complex two-dimensional (2D) data, with potential applications ranging
from particle physics to machine learning. The research was published in AIP
Advances.
The algorithm development, led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa physics
undergraduate Jeffrey G. Yepez, helps scientists figure out where tiny,
nearly invisible particles called neutrinos are coming from. These particles
can reveal information about nuclear reactors, the sun, and faraway cosmic
events. The method is based on a clever math discovery: the team found a
formula that lets them match patterns in data and accurately pinpoint the
direction of the source.
The students were guided by UH Mānoa Professor John G. Learned and received
additional mentoring from UH alumnus and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory staff scientist Viacheslav Li. The project began with simulated
neutrino data to locate nuclear reactors, and further studies are underway.
Read More
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-noisy-2d-algorithm-imaging-ai.html
In an open-access database and with publicly available code, researchers at
LLNL simulated and published one million orbits in cislunar space. (Graphic:
Dan Herchek)
Mediating a gravitational tug-of-war
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/supercomputers-simulated-the-orbits-of-1-million-satellites-between-earth-and-the-moon-and-less-than-10-percent-survived
Some experts predict that low Earth orbit (LEO) could safely support up to
100,000 satellites before spacecraft would start uncontrollably crashing into
one another. Once LEO is fully saturated with spacecraft, the next logical
step would be to start putting satellites in cislunar space. 
However, it is much harder to predict the orbits of spacecraft in cislunar
space because they get caught in a gravitational tug-of-war between Earth,
the moon and the sun (which has a greater influence on objects farther from
our planet). 
To remedy this issue, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(LLNL) in California used two of their supercomputers — Quartz and Ruby —
to simulate the trajectories of approximately 1 million cislunar objects. The
simulations required roughly 1.6 million CPU hours and would have taken a
single computer around 182 years to complete, according to an LLNL statement.
The supercomputers finished the task in just three days.
Read More
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/supercomputers-simulated-the-orbits-of-1-million-satellites-between-earth-and-the-moon-and-less-than-10-percent-survived
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challenges through innovative science, engineering and technology. Lawrence
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Administration.
Read previous Lab Report articles online https://www..llnl.gov/news/lab-report
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