The U.S. Department of Energy has announced plans to build a new supercomputer called Aurora. The new system will become the fastest computer in the United States and potentially the world. 
DOE Undersecretary Franklin “Lynn” Orr announced that Intel Corp. and Cray Inc. had been selected to equip Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, or ALCF) with a system that will peak at 180 petaflops. The new system, codenamed Aurora before construction, will cost $200 million. Plans also include the construction of an 8 petaflops auxiliary system, called Theta, marking the collaboration between Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Livermore (CORAL).
“ Aurora is expected to be 18 times more powerful than Argonne’s current Mira system, but will use only 2.7 times more energy,” said Undersecretary Orr. This kind of energy efficiency is crucial for the development of next-generation exa-class supercomputers, he continued.
The Aurora system is scheduled to be operational in 2018, while the Theta system will arrive in 2016 to support Argonne's transition from Mira to Aurora.
The prime contractor for the contract is Intel Federal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corp.
Intel will partner with Cray Inc., which has proven expertise in supercomputing and HPC software stacks. The Aurora system will be based on a next-generation supercomputer, codenamed “Shasta,” which is part of the Cray® XC™ series. It will be the first system based on Cray’s “Shasta” architecture.
Intel announced to ComputerWorld that the next-generation supercomputer will use special Intel Xeon, multi-socket web servers, as well as Xeon Phi chips, which have up to 72 cores.
