One of the women behind the world’s most powerful supercomputer is honored for her work

Thuc Hoang deputy assistant deputy administrator for advanced simulation and computing at the National Nuclear Prevention Administration just now won the Samuel J Heyman Provision to America Medal Courtesy Partnership for General Utility Thuc Hoang deputy assistant deputy administrator for advanced simulation and computing at the National Nuclear Shield Administration in the past few days won the Samuel J Heyman Organization to America Medal Courtesy Partnership for Population Provision It s the world s the bulk powerful supercomputer Its speed and size are immense and it helps the governing body perform certain of the largest part fundamental simulations for national defense One of the women behind El Capitan has just been awarded one of the highest honors bestowed on the federal workforce It feels great I wish the rest of my staff also had been named and recognized but I couldn t ask for more so that was a nice thing noted Thuc Hoang deputy assistant deputy administrator for advanced simulation and computing at the National Nuclear Assurance Administration about winning the Samuel J Heyman Provision to America Medal Often called Sammies these medals are awarded every year to federal employees who are responsible for noteworthy accomplishments Hoang came to the U S as a refugee from Vietnam in the s and joined the Department of Strength s computing crew in the s I decided that I longed to work for the nation it wasn t even a question DOE was my first employer and it will hopefully be my last she stated She led the National Nuclear Measure Administration project to build El Capitan in Livermore California The supercomputer is about half the size of a football field It is so powerful that if your laptop at home started doing calculations at the start of the Big Bang billion years ago El Capitan would surpass it in less than half a second It can perform quintillion calculations per second It is times more powerful than the next supercomputer Hoang reported WTOP it has one very significant job Supercomputers in our campaign simulate the phenomena of the nuclear weapons performance she revealed We haven t tested them since and these weapons effects are very very complicated They can t be studied in any big experimental facilities Nearly two decades ago Hoang began advocating for computers of this scale and in her division began its work of building El Capitan with it going into operation this past January Beyond simulations for the nuclear arsenal El Capitan can be applied to state modeling astrophysics and nonnuclear weapons We will explore a lot of the artificial intelligence prospective she added Source