DOD wants $240M refresh of its high-performance computing capabilities

The Department of Defense is looking to refresh its high-performance computing capabilities in a new $240 million contract.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a solicitation Friday “to provide the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) with world-class high performance computing capabilities for the” DOD at four of its Supercomputing Resource Centers.

The solicitation calls for production-grade high-performance computing systems that include “an appropriate combination of processor, memory, disk Input/Output (I/O), interconnect and Operating System capabilities in order to conduct complex, tightly-coupled, largescale, scientific calculations” that can be provided through a basic ordering agreement.

The agreement, which serves as a set of terms and conditions, is projected to run for three years with a potential ordering capacity of $240 million at four Supercomputing Resource Centers across the military, located at the Navy’s John C. Stennis Space Center, Miss.; the Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss.; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio’s Air Force Research Laboratory facility; and an Army Research Laboratory site at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

The agreement will be awarded by the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, or CEHNC, in Huntsville, Ala., which provides specialized engineering solutions on a global scale, including developing technology transfers, integrated facilities and systems and standardized-based tasks outside of the corps headquarters’ purview.

As part of the agreement, the CEHNC will also provide an on-ramp capability to potentially add new contractors through annual reviews of requirements in the BOA and has no limit to the firm-fixed-price orders it can make.

Stakeholders have until Aug. 20 to respond.