OpenAI Partners with US National Laboratories for Advanced AI Research and National Security

US nuclear labs to get OpenAI's support for security, research

The collaboration will see OpenAI's latest AI models installed on Los Alamos' Venado supercomputer, a machine built to handle some of the most critical challenges humanity faces. The plan is for OpenAI to install its latest O-series AI models on Los Alamos' powerful Venado supercomputer. This supercomputer, which uses NVIDIA's GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, will be tasked with solving some of humanity's most existential problems. Built with NVIDIA and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, the Venado is designed to handle large-scale AI tasks. Los Alamos has outlined how the AI-powered supercomputer will contribute to various critical areas. The goal is to develop new approaches for treating and preventing diseases while enhancing U.S. security by detecting both natural and man-made threats, including biological and cyber attacks, before they can emerge. Furthermore, the supercomputer will help unlock the potential of the nation's natural resources and revolutionize the energy infrastructure. It will also work on deepening our understanding of fundamental mathematics and high-energy physics, while improving cybersecurity to protect the American power grid. Additionally, the supercomputer aims to accelerate the science that underpins U.S. technological leadership.

OpenAI partners with US National Laboratories on research and nuclear weapon safety

Just days after announcing a version of ChatGPT designed for US government use, OpenAI is further entangling itself with the federal government. The company announced Thursday it would provide approximately 15,000 scientists associated with the US National Laboratories access to its latest frontier AI models. OpenAI will work with Microsoft to deploy its o1 model "or another o-series" variant on Venado, the Los Alamos National Laboratory's recently unveiled NVIDIA Grace Hopper-powered supercomputer. According to OpenAI, researchers from the Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs will use the company's technology to assist work they're doing to protect the national power grid from cyberattacks, identify new ways to treat and prevent diseases and study the fundamental laws of physics, among other initiatives. "OpenAI's collaboration with the US National Labs builds on the long-standing tradition of the US government collaborating with private industry to ensure that technological innovation leads to meaningful improvements in healthcare, energy, and other critical fields," the company said. Perhaps controversially, OpenAI says its AI models will also enhance work involving nuclear weapons -- specifically a program "focused on reducing the risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons worldwide." According to the company, this support is "critical" to its "commitment to national security." It adds that OpenAI researchers with security clearance will offer "careful and selective review of use cases and consultations on AI safety." Before today, the Los Alamos National Laboratory was already using ChatGPT. For instance, one of the lab's divisions is studying how AI models like GPT-4o could be safely used to advance bioscientific research. More broadly, federal, state and local government workers at 3,500 agencies across the country have sent more than 18 million messages to the chatbot since 2024, according to OpenAI. This is the latest move by OpenAI apparently intended to curry favor with the Trump administration.. Last week, OpenAI announced it was partnering with SoftBank to build $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure across the US. Before that, Altman personally contributed $1 million to President Trump's inauguration.

OpenAI partners with U.S. National Laboratories on scientific research, nuclear weapons security

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, during an event in Seoul, South Korea, on June 9, 2023. SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images file OpenAI said Thursday that the U.S. National Laboratories will be using its latest artificial intelligence models for scientific research and nuclear weapons security. Under the agreement, up to 15,000 scientists working at the National Laboratories may be able to access OpenAI's reasoning-focused o1 series. OpenAI will also work with Microsoft, its lead investor, to deploy one of its models on Venado, the supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a release. Venado is powered by technology from Nvidia and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the partnership at a company event called "Building to Win: AI Economics," in Washington, D.C. According to OpenAI, the new partnership will involve scientists using OpenAI's technology to enhance cybersecurity to protect the U.S. power grid, identify new approaches to treating and preventing diseases and deepen understanding of fundamental mathematics and physics. It will also involve work on nuclear weapons, "focused on reducing the risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons worldwide," the company wrote. Some OpenAI researchers with security clearances will consult on the project. Earlier this week, OpenAI released ChatGPT Gov, an AI platform built specifically for U.S. government use. OpenAI billed the new platform as a step beyond ChatGPT Enterprise as far as security. It will allow government agencies to feed "non-public, sensitive information" into OpenAI's models while operating within their own secure hosting environments, the company said. OpenAI said that since the beginning of 2024, more than 90,000 employees of federal, state and local governments have generated over 18 million prompts within ChatGPT, using the technology to translate and summarize documents, write and draft policy memos, generate code and build applications. The government partnership follows a series of moves by Altman and OpenAI that appear to be targeted at appeasing President Donald Trump. Altman contributed $1 million to the inauguration, attended the event last week alongside other tech CEOs and recently signaled his admiration for the president. Altman wrote on X that watching Trump "more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him," adding that "he will be incredible for the country in many ways." OpenAI is also part of the recently announced Stargate project that involves billions of dollars in investment into U.S. AI infrastructure. As OpenAI steps up its ties to the government, a Chinese rival is blowing up in the U.S. DeepSeek, an AI startup lab out of China, saw its app soar to the top of Apple's App Store rankings this week and roiled U.S. markets on reports that its powerful model was trained at a fraction of the cost of U.S. competitors. Altman described DeepSeek's R1 model as "impressive," and wrote on X that "we will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor!"

Los Alamos National Laboratory Partners with Openai to Advance National Security | Newswise

For the first time ever, the latest reasoning models from openai will be used for energy and national security applications on los alamos's venado supercomputer Los Alamos National Laboratory has entered a partnership with OpenAI to install its latest o-series models -- capable of expert reasoning for a broad span of complex scientific problems -- on the Lab's Venado supercomputer, which uses NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, to conduct national security research. "As threats to the nation become more complex and more pressing, we need new approaches and advanced technologies to preserve America's security," said Thom Mason, Laboratory director. "Artificial Intelligence models from OpenAI will allow us to do this more successfully, while also advancing our scientific missions to solve some of the nation's most important challenges." The Venado machine will be moved to a secure, classified network where it will be a shared resource for researchers from Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs. Strengthening strategic partnerships By strengthening strategic partnerships with technology companies, the Department of Energy and its national laboratories can provide transformative capabilities in science. Los Alamos has previously collaborated with OpenAI on projects that have improved AI safety and assessed reasoning capabilities of the o1 model. OpenAI models are now regularly used across the national laboratories for hundreds of applications spanning a range that includes energy missions, design of new materials, and development of quantum algorithms. The ability to use these models on a classified system will allow even deeper contributions. Sparking a new era of scientific progress There's almost no field of science that isn't being changed by AI, and nearly all of the Laboratory's missions are using it in some capacity. Researchers at the Lab are using AI to drive advancements in national security, open new scientific frontiers, and reduce threats against the country and the world. The national laboratories are uniquely suited to complement industry capabilities to harness AI for public good. An important example of this is the unique, world-leading scientific user facilities at the national laboratories that generate scientific data that is unavailable anywhere else in the world. These collaborative efforts will help redefine the foundations of science and technological progress in the United States. Some examples of what can be accomplished include: "AI has sparked a new era of scientific progress," said Jason Pruet, director of Los Alamos' National Security AI Office. "With the capabilities from OpenAI on Venado we have a chance to make contributions to the nation that seemed impossible just a few years ago."

OpenAI inks deal with Los Alamos lab to cram o1 into Venado

Tackling disease, tick. High-energy physics, tick. Nuclear weapon security, also tick OpenAI has announced another deal with Uncle Sam, this time to get its very latest models in the hands of US government scientists. The Microsoft-backed AI maker today announced a US national lab partnership that will start with deployment of its reasoning-capable o1 LLM on Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) Venado supercomputer. The Nvidia-powered beast of a machine is designed for artificial intelligence workloads, which OpenAI hopes will supercharge its model to enable various scientific breakthroughs. According to OpenAI, LANL will use o1 to identify new approaches to treating diseases, protect the US power grid, enhance America's cyber and general security, contribute to high-energy physics research, and more. The announcement also plays into President Trump's prior executive order on US energy leadership, citing o1 at LLNL as "unlocking the full potential of natural resources and revolutionizing the nation's energy infrastructure" as well as "accelerating the basic science that underpins US global technological leadership." o1, like the headline-grabbing DeepSeek R1 model that came out of China recently, is a chain-of-thought model that's supposed to hallucinate less and spit out better answers to queries by visibly thinking through problems. The Venado o1 resource will also be accessible to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory. All three labs will collaborate on a nuclear security program that OpenAI said will focus on reducing risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons around the world. "This use case is highly consequential, and we believe it is critical for OpenAI to support it as part of our commitment to national security," the ChatGPT outfit said, adding: "Our partnership will support this work, with careful and selective review of use cases and consultations on AI safety from OpenAI researchers with security clearances." OpenAI and LANL have worked together in the past, with the pair collaborating last year to investigate the use of AI in bioscientific research. That program, which involved using GPT-4o in wet labs to assess the risk of artificial intelligence being used to develop bioweapons, is being built on with the latest partnership, OpenAI said. We reached out to OpenAI to see whether it was planning to expand its national lab partnership beyond LANL and the other facilities that will get access to o1 on Venado, and didn't hear back. It's kinda amusing that the supercomputer is getting o1 at the same time Microsoft, which helped bankroll OpenAI, has promised to roll out the model for free to all Copilot users. The lab partnership is the second announcement OpenAI made this week about working with the US government. The biz on Tuesday announced the release of ChatGPT Gov, a variant of ChatGPT Enterprise designed for use by the public sector. OpenAI, whose products have been trialed in several state governments and federal agencies prior to the launch of ChatGPT Gov, said it hoped the new product would expedite its desire to be authorized to handle "non-public sensitive data," a process it is currently working through. ®

OpenAI Is Getting Into the Nuclear Weapons Game

The AI company is deepening its existing partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory and OpenAI announced a new partnership this morning that will be “focused on reducing the risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons worldwide.†Sam Altman of OpenAI announced the partnership during a company event this morning and Los Alamos confirmed it with a press release on its website. The plan is for OpenAI to install its latest o-series models on Los Alamos’ Venado supercomputer and set the massive machine to the task of helping solve some of the world’s most existential and terrifying problems. Los Alamos listed the problems it expects the OpenAI-powered supercomputer to tackle: The Venado is one of those massive supercomputers that dominates a room. It uses NVIDIA’s advanced GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips and was built in partnership with NVIDIA and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises. “As threats to the nation become more complex and more pressing, we need new approaches and advanced technologies to preserve America’s security,†Thom Mason, Laboratory director of Los Alamos in a statement on its website. “Artificial Intelligence models from OpenAI will allow us to do this more successfully, while also advancing our scientific missions to solve some of the nation’s most important challenges.†OpenAI has been cozying up to the government for a few years now, and it’s been turbocharged under the Trump Presidency. Earlier this week, Altman announced ChatGPT Gov, a specialized version of its chatbot for government applications. Los Alamos and OpenAI have a relationship going back almost a year. Last summer, the pair announced a partnership that focused more narrowly on bioscience. At the time, Los Alamos told Gizmodo that it was optimistic but cautious about AI. It emphasized that AI was a tool and that humans were the real threat, not the tools themselves. “Our first pilot technology evaluation will look to understand how AI enables individuals to learn how to do protocols in the real world which will give us a better understanding of not only how it can help enable science but also whether it would enable a bad actor to execute a nefarious activity in the lab,†Los Alamos said at the time. Los Alamos must have been impressed with OpenAI and its models, because now they’ll be unleashed on some of the most pernicious and dangerous problems humanity faces.

OpenAI partners with national labs to "supercharge" scientific breakthroughs

On Thursday, OpenAI announced that it is deepening its ties with US government through a partnership with the National Laboratories and expects to use AI to "supercharge" research across a wide range of fields to better serve the public. "This is the beginning of a new era, where AI will advance science, strengthen national security, and support US government initiatives," OpenAI said. The deal ensures that "approximately 15,000 scientists working across a wide range of disciplines to advance our understanding of nature and the universe" will have access to OpenAI's latest reasoning models, the announcement said. For researchers from Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs, access to "o1 or another o-series model" will be available on Venado -- an Nvidia supercomputer at Los Alamos that will become a "shared resource." Microsoft will help deploy the model, OpenAI noted. OpenAI suggested this access could propel major "breakthroughs in materials science, renewable energy, astrophysics," and other areas that Venado was "specifically designed" to advance. Key areas of focus for Venado's deployment of OpenAI's model include accelerating US global tech leadership, finding ways to treat and prevent disease, strengthening cybersecurity, protecting the US power grid, detecting natural and man-made threats "before they emerge," and " deepening our understanding of the forces that govern the universe," OpenAI said. Perhaps among OpenAI's flashiest promises for the partnership, though, is helping the US achieve a "a new era of US energy leadership by unlocking the full potential of natural resources and revolutionizing the nation's energy infrastructure." That is urgently needed, as officials have warned that America's aging energy infrastructure is becoming increasingly unstable, threatening the country's health and welfare, and without efforts to stabilize it, the US economy could tank. But possibly the most "highly consequential" government use case for OpenAI's models will be supercharging research safeguarding national security, OpenAI indicated.

OpenAI puts AI models on Los Alamos supercomputer

Why it matters: OpenAI is positioning the move as part of an effort to work with the Trump administration and support U.S. leadership and innovation. Driving the news: As part of the deal, OpenAI and Microsoft will deploy o1 or another of OpenAI's o-series of reasoning models on Venado, an Nvidia-powered supercomputer based at Los Alamos. The model will also be available to researchers at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories. OpenAI announced the partnership during a Washington, D.C., meeting Thursday that included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, members of Congress and staffers, and representatives of the Trump administration. What they're saying: "As threats to the nation become more complex and more pressing, we need new approaches and advanced technologies to preserve America's security," Los Alamos lab director Thom Mason said in a statement. Flashback: Last June, OpenAI and Los Alamos said they were working together to study the impact and risks of using generative AI in an active lab. The big picture: Altman and other tech leaders have become fixtures in D.C. in recent weeks, with many present for Trump's inauguration. The tech companies have also been making moves seemingly aimed at pleasing the new administration, including seven-figure donations to the president's inauguration. Our thought bubble: Elon Musk -- a dedicated foe of OpenAI who has repeatedly sued the company -- may have the new president's ear. But Altman, who shared a photo op with the president at last week's Stargate announcement, is spending a ton of time with team Trump, too.