Jefferson Lab to Lead $300+ Million High Performance Data Facility Hub

This first-of-its-kind facility will provide unprecedented data management resources for research

As a long-time supporter and “Friend of Jefferson Lab,” VPAR is proud to share this important economic development news with our members.

On Monday, October 16th, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the selection of Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility as the lead for its new High Performance Data Facility Hub.

Jefferson Lab will partner with DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to form a joint project team led by Jefferson Lab. The HPDF will be a $300-500 million computing and data infrastructure resource that will provide transformational capabilities for data analysis, networking and storage for the nation’s research enterprise. It will provide researchers with tools, methods and technologies to maximize the scientific value of data.

The Jefferson Lab HPDF Hub will be housed in the Jefferson Lab Data Center Building. Construction of the new building will be funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia, which to date already has provided $6 million in seed funding; the state also has committed to provide $43 million to fund the construction of the data center building on Jefferson Lab’s central campus. The initial build-out will be a versatile, modular data center that will allow future upgrades and expansions without requiring hardware system shutdowns.

“We would like to thank our many partners for their tireless support – from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Newport News, to our Virginia University system partners, our many regional business leaders, our national lab colleagues and our new project partner, Berkeley Lab,” Jefferson Lab Director Stuart Henderson said. “We would also like to thank our elected representatives, who have offered unwavering support for this project.”

Jefferson Lab’s proposal to build the new HPDF Hub was strongly supported by partner colleges and universities throughout Virginia, including Old Dominion University, William & Mary, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia. University partnerships are expected to expand as project plans more fully develop. The HPDF project will also benefit from Jefferson Lab’s strong existing partnerships with the 60 member universities of the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA).

HPDF will also provide nationwide leadership in managing the scientific data lifecycle. It will operate according to FAIR data principles, meaning data will be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. The facility will be developed to optimize scientists’ data access. It will incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to dynamically configure its resources in computation, networking and storage to allow real-time access to data in its many forms.

Initial project budget estimates and timelines project an approximate operational budget of $75 million per year, which begins ramping up in fiscal year 2028.

Further Reading

Letter from Alan Witt, Friends of Jefferson Labs

U.S. Department of Energy Selects the High Performance Data Facility Lead
DOE National Laboratory Program Announcement: HPDF