Advanced Simulation and Computing Program

The Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (ASC) is a super-computing program run by the National Nuclear Security Administration, in order to simulate, test, and maintain the United States nuclear stockpile. The program was created in 1995 in order to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program (or SSP). The goal of the initiative is to extend the lifetime of the current aging stockpile.

After the United States' 1992 moratorium on live nuclear testing, the Stockpile Stewardship Program was created in order to find a way to test, and maintain the nuclear stockpile. In response, the National Nuclear Security Administration began to simulate the nuclear warheads using supercomputers. As the stockpile ages, the simulations have become more complex, and the maintenance of the stockpile requires more computing power. Over the years, due to Moore's law, the ASC program has created several different supercomputers with increasing power, in order to compute the simulations and mathematics. ^{[citation needed]}

In celebration of 25 years of ASC accomplishments, the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program has published this report.

The majority of ASC's research is done on supercomputers in three different laboratories. The calculations are verified by human calculations.^{[citation needed]}

The ASC program has three laboratories:

The ASC program currently houses numerous supercomputers on the TOP500 list for computing power. This list changes every six months, so please visit https://top500.org/lists/top500/ for the latest list of NNSA machines. Although these computers may be in separate laboratories, remote computing has been established between the three main laboratories.

The ASC program publishes a quarterly newsletter describing many of its research accomplishments and hardware milestones.

Within the ASC program, there are six subdivisions, each having their own role in the extension of the life of the stockpile.^{[citation needed]}