The El Capitan supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will enter the classified network mid-March 2025, senior Livermore officials told the Exchange Monitor Tuesday at a press tour of the site.
Sierra, the current Livermore supercomputer on the classified network, will retire when El Capitan takes over, Terri Quinn, the deputy associate director for high performance computing, told reporters.
El Capitan took over an engineering magazine’s top 500 list as the fastest supercomputer in the world in November.
Ukraine’s security service killed a senior Russian general in Moscow a day after the service leveled criminal charges against him for alleged directed use of banned chemical weapons, media reported.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment as he left for his office. His assistant also died in the attack.
Kirillov was sanctioned by several countries for his actions in the conflict with Ukraine. Russia has denied using chemical warfare in Ukraine.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has offered the most extensive insight to date on his priorities as he takes over the Defense Appropriations chairmanship, to include encouraging the incoming Trump administration to support “a significant and sustained” defense spending boost and arguing the U.S.’ almost $900 billion defense topline is “not nearly enough.”
“The U.S. government spends nearly $900 billion annually on defense, but considering the total amount of federal spending, the challenges facing the United States, the country’s global military requirements, and the return on investment in hard power, this is not nearly enough,” McConnell writes in his new essay in Foreign Affairs. “If defense budgets cannot even keep up with inflation, how can Washington keep up with the ‘pacing threat’ of China?”
McConnell’s recent remarks echo comments from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), set to be the next chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee, who has previously detailed an agenda to boost defense spending to five percent of the gross domestic product. Wicker in late May unveiled his own plan for a “generational investment” in defense, which included a push to boost the FY ‘25 defense topline by an additional $55 billion, increase annual defense spending to five percent of GDP and get after recommendations to max out munitions production capacity, grow the size of the Navy fleet and move into production of modernization efforts across the services. A version of this story first appeared in Exchange Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
Consolidated Nuclear Security posted a source sought notice on sam.gov this month for a contractor to conduct site demolition, preparation, and installation of equipment for a utility upgrade project at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Responses are due by Dec. 31.
