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- [00:00]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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- [00:30]
Podcast Host
Well, folks, it is the Christmas break, but we would be remiss if we did not bring you some interesting information. Here is our friend Cabot Phillips over from Morning Wire about the Manhattan Project 2.0 pursued by the Trump administration.
- [00:44]
Cabot Phillips
In this AI arms race with China, the United States will lose the arm race if. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the site of uranium enrichment for the Manhattan Project. And now, over 80 years later, it's the site of a new technological leap, one that will shape the future of America's fight for dominance. The enemy is China. Their weapon, digital warfare. To counter this threat, President Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright and OpenAI co founder Greg Brockman have gathered America's brightest scientific minds together to accelerate scientific innovation using Oak Ridge's supercomputer Frontier. So with China's threat growing, I've been sent here for an exclusive look at Frontier and to meet the people working to keep America from falling behind. You've used this phrase, the new Manhattan Project. What does that mean and what are.
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright
The stakes in the Manhattan Project? It was critical that we developed an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany did. Think of the world today, if they had led and had an atomic bomb before we did, the world would be unrecognizable. AI has been around for a long time, but it's hitting critical mass now. In the next few years, AI is going to change our world, not just economically, but in science and also in national defense. China is working aggressively at AI. If they got a meaningful lead on us in AI, it will be a different world in the future. We have to lead and win the AI race just like we did Manhattan Project. This is Manhattan Project 2.
- [02:30]
Cabot Phillips
The last four years. Do you feel like we did a good enough job of keeping abreast of our competitors? And what will the Trump administration do differently compared to the Biden administration?
- [02:39]
Greg Brockman
The last four years seem to be consumed with theology regarding the environment. We're more interested in helping other countries than we were our own. So we're here today with the Energy Secretary, with my good friend Congressman Chuck Fleischman, to see what we can do to make certain that America remains at the cutting edge and that we're doing everything we can here in Tennessee to make that so.
- [02:56]
Cabot Phillips
For folks at home who are asking, why nuclear specifically? Why not coal? Why not natural gas? What makes nuclear inherently different from those other sources?
- [03:04]
Energy Secretary Chris Wright
Today, the United States mostly runs on oil and natural gas. Those are our two dominant energy sources. But what could become big to the scale of oil and natural gas? Nuclear. It's the only technology that works. Whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, nuclear just provides electricity. But in the not distant future, nuclear will also provide high temperature process heat that is the most important energy source in the world. If you want to make steel or plastics and aluminum and all the materials we build, everything around us, you need high temperature process heat.
- [03:36]
Cabot Phillips
There seem to be two camps when it comes to AI globally. One camp saying collaboration is a good thing and if any country makes AI advancements, it will benefit all of us. Others saying if the countries making those advancements are China or Russia, they're not going to share that information with us. That's dangerous. Where do you fall on that question?
- [03:54]
Greg Brockman
I think what we have to do here in America is out innovate everybody on the planet. And creating energy security is a big part of that because this is an inherently energy intensive business.
- [04:03]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Russia, China and other countries, South Korea.
- [04:06]
Cabot Phillips
And France, not only our enemies are in this sphere, our friends are in this sphere. America needs to win.
- [04:12]
Energy Secretary Chris Wright
It is critically important that we have.
- [04:14]
Cabot Phillips
Nuclear as part of a key all.
- [04:16]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Of the above energy portfolio in America.
- [04:18]
Energy Secretary Chris Wright
We will lose the AI arms race if we strangle innovation. We need to unleash American energy. And if we do that, we will win the AI arms race. We will win Manhattan Project 2.
- [04:32]
Cabot Phillips
And to ensure the success of this new Manhattan Project, public private partnerships are forming. In fact, today's event marks the beginning of a collaboration between the US government and OpenAI, represented by Co founder Greg Brockman. Brockman's shared faith in AI has sparked intense opposition, drawing parallels to the resistance nuclear technology faced following World War II. Fears of nuclear fallout became so strong that even the creator of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, spoke up, calling the formation of atomic energy a very grave crisis. Brockman, though, does not view AI as a crisis, rather as an opportunity for extraordinary growth, not just for technology, but for the human race. We heard the Energy Secretary talk about this new Manhattan Project and how nuclear energy is going to power the work that you're doing at OpenAI and the work that others are doing in the space as well. Why nuclear? Why is it important for your space?
- [05:27]
Greg Brockman
Well, historically, I think over the past couple of years, the US energy grid has not grown very much. That is something that President Trump and Secretary Wright, they are actually very enthusiastic about increasing the supply of energy because it is necessary for such energy intensive manufacturing processes. What we do, the thing that you should think of AI as doing is manufacturing energy into intelligence. And one of the things about AI is that it not only is something that consumes energy, but it actually can unlock more energy, it can increase efficiencies, it can make it so that America is able to produce more.
- [05:56]
Cabot Phillips
Right now, folks think of OpenAI as more of a chat feature you can talk to, but you say that's going to change in the future as it becomes more integrated. What does the future of OpenAI look like?
- [06:04]
Greg Brockman
Our goal is for AI to be something that is in many different facets of life. And I think that this has been true in people's daily lives. But if you look at the kinds of applications that are starting to come down the pike, that we're seeing knowledge work, that we're seeing people being able to come up with solutions they wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's very clear at this point that AI is going to be the most important economic driver of the future.
- [06:25]
Cabot Phillips
All right, tell us about the thousand scientists AI jam.
- [06:28]
Greg Brockman
This is such an exciting day for us and for the scientists at the national labs because we're bringing together our AI with the work that they are doing. And so 1,000 scientists are exploring how to use artificial intelligence to accelerate their work. I've been talking to a number of them, some people who are using it to advance nuclear fusion research, to come up with novel designs that would normally take weeks to do that they can do very fast. I'm talking to people using it for biology and various other kinds of research.
- [06:54]
Podcast Host
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- [08:02]
Cabot Phillips
To better understand the research, the frontier will accelerate. I spoke with the director of the neutron scattering division, who oversees Oak Ridge's neutro source, a system that provides neutrons for studying the atomic structure of materials. So what does atomic structure have to do with the digital arms race? As I found out, this research has massive applications for one of America's weakest links manufacturing.
- [08:25]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
This is a sample can. So this machine is specifically designed to measure the structure of whatever you put in that can. And that can be anything you want. I mean, it could be table salt, but if you put a material in there and put it in the neutron beam, the data you get out of the instrument will tell you exactly with atomic resolution where all the atoms are inside. So what they do is they take that data and then they shove it into a machine learning, or AI, and the AI looks at it and says, okay, now for the next day, you need to do this because it's getting too strained in this place. So it's steering the experiment as it goes. So this is one of the big things. And what's interesting, you can measure real engineering materials. So that's a cylinder head assembly for a car. That's an actual operating gas engine. You can put that whole thing in the neutron beam and you can run the engine and you can synchronize the engine with the neutron beam pulse, and you can look at what's happening in the combustion chamber. What's the interest is to make materials stronger, lighter, and cheaper.
- [09:23]
Cabot Phillips
With the AI, I imagine also you can model out a million different variables.
- [09:28]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
You have the possibility of having so much data that you can train the AI model on that it will become very accurate in its predictions. I mean, they can train a chatgpt sized model on Frontier very, very quickly. And, you know, that's, that's what the research community are doing. This is what's coming out of the detectors. These peaks are what we would call diffraction peaks. The position in that direction and the height, that's the data which is telling you where the atoms are. So you need something, some computer, some human intelligence or artificial intelligence to interpret that pattern. When I explain it like that, it sounds quite simple. And in principle, it is beautifully simple.
- [10:08]
Cabot Phillips
The director then gave me a tour of Oak Ridge's impressive target station. But the most fascinating part of the day was when I finally got to look inside Frontier. A machine taking America from the nuclear age into the age of artificial intelligence.
- [10:41]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
Okay.
- [10:43]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [10:44]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
All right.
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Cabot Phillips
What is this?
- [10:45]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
This is awesome. This is one blade of the Frontier supercomputer. It's the world's fastest supercomputer for open science. This is one of somewhere over 18,000 of these in this room, all networked together to make science calculations for the.
- [11:01]
Cabot Phillips
Person at home who has a computer set up. They got their laptop, their phone. How much computing power are we talking about on one of these blades?
- [11:08]
Podcast Host
Huge.
- [11:08]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
This is probably 50 times your laptop. Just this one. When we're using our laptop, we're asking it to do a lot of things. When scientists are doing this, they are writing algorithms that have billions of parameters. We're working with some folks from GE designing a new aircraft engine. The amount of parameters that they're looking at is unfathomable. And so they need those really, really fast calculations to make their simulation usable to make decisions for their business.
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Cabot Phillips
So this system was debuted in 2022.
- [11:36]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
Correct.
- [11:37]
Cabot Phillips
How much is it able to be modified to make sure that it doesn't become obsolete?
- [11:41]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
So when we buy these systems, the technology doesn't exist. We make the procurement and then we design them hand in hand with the vendor. In this case, it was Hewlett Packard Enterprise and amd. For example, the cooling technology here, we pushed them to make warm water cooling, saving us at least 40% in our energy cost. And then we pushed them to design chips so that we could make them available to our scientists. A year later, you could buy this chip.
- [12:05]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Wow.
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Cabot Phillips
What sort of possibilities does this technology open up for the future of energy and research in America?
- [12:11]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
We, we could run protected health data, which is a huge area for us. We have a lot of users who come to us with huge, huge data sets and they want to look for trends, cancer related trends, for example, so that clinicians can make decisions way faster. And so that means we make this big machine available to scientists who have really big problems. And so they propose what they're going to use it for, and then they agree to publish part of their work into the scientific domain. So it is open science, true open science. It is for the greater good. Everyone benefits from the work done here. We don't do the secret stuff because we want it to be available to the public.
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Neutron Scattering Division Director
Wow.
- [12:46]
Cabot Phillips
As I wrapped up my day, the sense of optimism became palpable. Because despite America's growing tension with China, the scientific community at Oak Ridge sees an opportunity to be the global leader in innovation. But as I prepared to leave, something unexpected happened. I was told a man was on his way to take me back to the birthplace of Oak Ridge, back to a place of historical significance and secrecy. As we approached our destination, we were told to turn the cameras off the.
- [13:22]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Oak Ridge reactor here, they were built to figure out different problems in the early days. What's the best material? How do you make sure a reactor safe? So we'll go inside. You're allowed to film inside.
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Greg Brockman
Okay.
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Cabot Phillips
First just tell me where we're sitting.
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Right now we're sitting at the X10 graphite reactor, which is a national historic site at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This is where Oak Ridge National Laboratory began. This is the face of the graphite reactor. This is 1,248 channels that go through 7ft of concrete and through a 3 foot air gap into a 24 foot cube of graphite. The workers loaded the reactor by putting four and a quarter inch slugs of natural uranium into the cube of Graphite. They loaded 31 tons and the reactor went critical. It began operating on November 4, 1943. And then after the uranium was irradiated, workers would take it next door to a chemical separation facility. And their workers behind a great deal of shielding would separate out the plutonium from the irradiated uranium. The graphite is a moderator that slows down neutrons. So uranium neutrons circulate when there's no neutron absorbing material to stop them. And some of those neutrons will penetrate other atoms of uranium and split them. Some of those neutrons will hit other uranium atoms and split them and so on, and you get a chain reaction.
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Cabot Phillips
How much sequestering of information was going on at this time to keep the secret here? How much knowledge was there of exactly what was being Worked towards.
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
It was extremely compartmentalized. Most of the 75,000 people didn't know what was happening. People would do the job in front of them and they would pass it on to the next room. When the bombs were dropped, the government was very open immediately with what had happened. They said these bombs were made in Oak Ridge and the workers realized what they had been working on.
- [15:27]
Cabot Phillips
A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
So after the war, the question was, what do you do with the reactor? I mean, everyone in Oak Ridge came from somewhere else and the people that were from universities wanted to go back home. But there were a few who realized we have an unprecedented scientific tool here in this reactor. So a lot of the first nuclear engineers came here to train because we had the reactor and we had the expertise. There were no nuclear engineering programs because we were inventing nuclear engineering. The most famous one that we always talk about was Hyman Rickover. Hyman Rickover came here to figure out how you could put a nuclear reactor on a submarine. Huge strategic advantage. If you can have a nuclear powered sub, it can stay underwater almost indefinitely. So he came here to see if he could do it, and he figured it out.
- [16:15]
Cabot Phillips
Obviously, the revolutionary work that's happening here with the Frontier supercomputer, Is there any nuclear research going on here at the site currently?
- [16:23]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Oh, yeah. We have a significant commitment in both fission and fusion energy. So in nuclear energy, we use that supercomputer to model reactors. And we actually have modeled a reactor core. We modeled one of TVA's reactors. TVA started up the reactor, and then we compared our model to reality and it matched. So what that does is tells you, if we want to improve reactor performance, safety, efficiency, let's do it on the computer first and narrow down what might be the best solution. And then in fusion energy, we continue to do work to perfect the materials necessary to control a burning plasma. Essentially a sun on earth. You know, the sun is a big fusion reactor. And the holy grail, so to speak, in fusion is to produce more power out than it takes to run the reactor. And we're trying to accelerate that and working with private companies to commercialize fusion as an energy source, which would be transformational.
- [17:20]
Cabot Phillips
Final question, the Manhattan Project. We have the benefit of hindsight now. We say, oh, well, it worked out. But I can't help but think of the people who came to do this work who were stepping into the unknown with the technology. They had no idea what the ramifications were. Talk to me about the dangers that were inherent in that work.
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
The risk for all of this was not only is it going to work, but is it safe? When Dupont built the X10 graphite reactor, they realized there's a risk. Maybe this reactor runs out of control. Maybe we send nuclear particles up into the air or over a wide area. Maybe our workers are killed because we lose control of the reaction. We look back now and go, of course it worked. But this was brand new stuff. From the very beginning, there was this tension of. We realize the power of unleashing the atom, but we also realized the great responsibility that comes with it.
- [18:17]
Cabot Phillips
Science has profoundly altered the conditions of man's life, Both materially and in ways of the spirit as well. It has extended the range of questions which man has a choice. It has extended man's freedom to make significant decisions. No one can predict what vast new continents of knowledge the future of science will discover. But we know that as long as men are free to ask what they will, free to say what they think, free to think what they must, Science will never regress. And freedom itself will never be wholly lost. What was it like, Malin, to be alone with God? Is that who you think I was alone with?
- [19:27]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
Maradin?
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Cabot Phillips
I knew your father.
- [19:29]
Greg Brockman
I am yet convinced that he was.
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Not of this world.
- [19:35]
Cabot Phillips
All men know of the great Taliesin. You are my father. That the gods should war for my soul. Princess Garrus, savior of our people.
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Podcast Host
People.
- [19:48]
Cabot Phillips
I know what the bull God offered you. I was offered the same. And there is a new pirate work in the world. I've seen it. A God who sacrifices what he loves for us. We are each given only one life Singer.
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
No.
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Cabot Phillips
We're given another. I learned of Yazu the Christian. And I have become his follower.
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Neutron Scattering Division Director
He's waiting on Mariel. And I think you can give him one.
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Cabot Phillips
Trust in Ya'sul. He is the only hope for men like us. Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the Great Light. Great light.
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
Great darkness. Such things mattered to me then.
- [20:28]
Cabot Phillips
What matters to you now, Mistress of lies?
- [20:32]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
You, nephew.
- [20:37]
Cabot Phillips
The sword of a high king. How many lives must be lost before.
- [20:43]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
You accept the power you were born to wield? So clinging to the promises of a God who has abandoned you.
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Neutron Scattering Division Director
I cannot take up that sword again.
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Cabot Phillips
You know what you must do. Great Light, forgive me. The time has come to be reborn. And Doug.
- [21:19]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Here we have the Limu Emu in.
- [21:21]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
Its natural habitat, Helping people customize their.
- [21:24]
Cabot Phillips
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Fascinating.
- [21:30]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [21:34]
Congressman Chuck Fleischman
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [21:36]
Neutron Scattering Division Director
Cut the camera. They see us.
- [21:38]
Podcast Host
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- [21:46]
Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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Congressman Chuck Fleischman
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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Cabot Phillips
I just built my whole site in under an hour.
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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Neutron Scattering Division Director
Whoa.
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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Cabot Phillips
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Oak Ridge Supercomputer Engineer
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