To focus on development and demonstration of modeling/simulation technologies and methodologies through the structure of multidisciplinary simulation centers, single-discipline centers, and focus…

The Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration awarded the University of Virginia a $4.459 million cooperative agreement on September 23, 2025, under the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (CFDA 81.124) to develop and demonstrate modeling and simulation technologies through multidisciplinary and single-discipline simulation centers that solve open science and engineering problems relevant to NNSA Defense Program missions, promote scientific interactions between academia and NNSA laboratories, and train future scientists in long-term research areas supporting stockpile stewardship.

The award funds work performed in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a period of performance through September 22, 2030. The University of Virginia leads the effort with three sub-recipients: The Ohio State University, which develops a framework integrating prediction model workloads and data analytics workloads through multi-tiered data movement technology powered by intelligent runtime systems using AI to optimize data placement and prefetching across storage hierarchies; the University of Utah, which optimizes the HashBrick framework for structured and unstructured grids, customizes code generation for specialized accelerator hardware, and improves cross-node communication scalability; and the University of Iowa, which collaborates on modeling severe nonlinear dynamics in scientific machine learning algorithms such as physics-informed neural networks and physics-aware recurrent convolutions, leveraging expertise in hydrocode development and deep learning methods for complex spatiotemporal systems. Sub-awards were obligated to Ohio State University on April 23, 2026, the University of Utah on March 23, 2026, and the University of Iowa on February 26, 2026.

To focus on development and demonstration of modeling/simulation technologies and methodologies through the structure of multidisciplinary simulation centers, single-discipline centers, and focus investigatory centers to solve open science and engineering problems relevant to nnsa defense program missions; to promote and sustain scientific interactions between the academic community and scientists at the DOE nnsa laboratories; and to train future scientists in specific areas of long-term research relevant to nnsa stockpile stewardship.