MCS researchers receive INCITE awards to accelerate scientific discovery MCS Menu Researchers in the Mathematics and Computer Science division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory will participate in three mission-critical projects on DOE leadership-class computers. The projects — in computer science, Earth sciences and engineering — have been awarded supercomputing time through DOE’s Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. Computer Science Jeffrey Larson will join researchers from JPMorgan Chase in a new project titled “Evaluating the Performance of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm” (QAOA). The researchers will develop numerical techniques to predict the performance of QAOA for arbitrarily large problems beyond those feasible with classical simulations. The project has received 40,000 node-hours on Argonne’s Polaris system and 200,000 node-hours on Argonne’s Aurora supercomputer to test the novel techniques. Aurora and Polaris are housed at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility. “Our aim is to be able to make comparisons with classical solvers and clarify requirements for quantum advantage — where a quantum computer can execute a computational task faster and more accurately than leading-class supercomputers,” Larson said. Earth Sciences Azamat Mametjanov will participate with colleagues from four national laboratories in a new project titled “Energy Exascale Earth System Model.” The project, led by DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will evaluate the atmospheric model SCREAM using real-world simulations across the United States. The team has been awarded 1 million node-hours on Aurora at Argonne and 600,000 node hours on Frontier at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “Our goal is to achieve an unprecedented 200-meter resolution,” the team project states. Engineering Paul Fischer and Misun Min will continue work with their colleagues on the project “Advancing Fusion and Fission Energy through Exascale,” led by Pennsylvania State University.