Addendum No. 1 to RFP #6-B143-P-00148-00.doc

Court Atkinson Procurement Specialist Financial Management and Procurement Services (FMPS) Argonne National Laboratory

9700 South Cass Avenue, Bldg. 201

Lemont, IL 60439

630-252-3388 atkinson@anl.gov

May 28, 2026

TO ALL OFFERORS:

Subject:

ALCF Artemis Compute Cluster

Request for Proposal (RFP) No. 6-B143-P-00148-00 Addendum No. One (1)

Attached herewith for your information and use in preparing your proposal for subject project is Addendum No. 1.

Kindly acknowledge receipt of this Addendum by signing and returning one (1) copy of this letter to atkinson@anl.gov.

Sincerely, Court Atkinson

Procurement Specialist

Argonne National Laboratory FMPS

Receipt Acknowledged:

Company:

By:

Addendum No. One (1)

TO

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) 6-B143-P-00148-00

FOR

ALCF Artemis Compute Cluster

Date of Addendum: May 28, 2026 This addendum is being issued to modify the subject RFP as follows:

I. Extension of Proposal Response Submission Deadline The proposal response submission deadline is hereby extended to 4:30 p.m. CST on Friday, June 12, 2026.

II. Clarifications and Offeror Questions

Please refer to Appendix A – Clarifications and Offeror Questions, attached hereto and incorporated herein, for a list of clarifications and responses to Offeror questions.

Appendix A – Clarifications and Offeror Questions

Procurement/Contractual/Schedule

Q: Proposals are required to remain valid for 120 days from the proposal due date. Given current and anticipated volatility in OEM hardware pricing, including potential fluctuations during the 2026 timeframe, how is Argonne addressing the risk of manufacturer price increases during the procurement process? Would Argonne consider an Economic Price Adjustment (EPA) mechanism, a shorter proposal validity period, or a post-award integration phase under which hardware pricing could be reconciled to actual OEM market rates at the time of order placement? Additionally, what is the anticipated timeframe for award and deployment?

Argonne recognizes the current volatility in the IT hardware market and understands the risk to offerors of holding fully fixed pricing for an extended period during the procurement process. In order to facilitate the submission of the strongest and most competitive proposals, Argonne is willing to consider proposals that incorporate a clearly defined pre-award pricing adjustment structure or commodity price sharing mechanism.

Accordingly, offerors may propose pricing based on, for example, an Economic Price Adjustment (EPA) mechanism tied to an objective and verifiable index, tiered pricing based on the timing of award, or another clearly structured approach that reflects current market conditions. Any such mechanism must be fully described in the proposal, including the applicable index, formula, timing, pricing tiers, caps/thresholds, assumptions, and any other details or relevant terms necessary for Argonne to evaluate the proposed pricing structure and its potential impact.

Offerors may also choose to submit fully firm pricing valid for the full 120-day proposal validity period. However, offerors should be aware that Argonne will continue to evaluate proposals on a best value basis. As such, pricing that is materially inflated to hedge against market uncertainty over the full 120-day period may be less favorable in comparison with proposals that present lower pricing together with a clearly defined and reasonable pre-award adjustment structure.

Argonne intends to evaluate proposals and make an award as quickly as reasonably possible; however, the exact timing will depend on the number and complexity of proposals received, the need for any clarifications, and the time required to complete the evaluation, procurement, and award process. Argonne also reserves the right, at its sole discretion and if determined to be necessary or advantageous to the Laboratory, to request updated pricing or price proposal revisions from offerors prior to award in order to establish a current pricing baseline.

Regardless of the pricing structure proposed, the resulting contract award must establish a firm-fixed price at the time of award. No post-award price adjustments, escalations, or reconciliations will be permitted. Any proposed adjustment mechanism must therefore operate only prior to award and must be structured so that a final firm-fixed price can be established before issuance of the purchase order.

Following award, Argonne’s objective is to proceed with delivery, installation, and acceptance as soon as practicable. Offerors should include their earliest achievable delivery schedule in their proposals.

Q: Are there any small business, M/WBE, D/VOSB participation goals for this solicitation or evaluation criteria weighted to benefit such certified firms?

No. This solicitation is not designated as a small business set-aside, and there are no specific participation goals for M/WBE, D/VOSB, or other certified business categories. In addition, the evaluation criteria will not assign exclusive weighting based on business size or certification status.

Q: In addition to the pricing form, the RFP requires pricing narrative information (e.g. assumptions made, contingencies used) and the Pricing Proposal Form requires a BOM. To submit a single Cost/Price proposal file in accordance with the email submittal requirements, shall Offerors provide pricing notes and the BOM as appendices to the provided Pricing Proposal Form?

Offerors should complete and sign Enclosure No. 3 – Price Proposal Form in its original format. The completed form may either be included as part of the Offeror’s overall Part II – Price Proposal submission (as an appendix) or provided as a separate standalone document for ease of filing by Argonne Procurement and to facilitate pricing review by the Argonne Technical Team. Pricing notes, assumptions, contingencies, and the bill of materials (BOM) should be incorporated within the Part II – Price Proposal package. The BOM should be clear and well organized, as it may be incorporated as an appendix to any resulting award or purchase order to clearly define the full scope of supplies to be provided by the successful Offeror. If the BOM is extensive or is more effectively presented in an Excel workbook with multiple worksheets, it may be submitted in that format.

Q: May offerors submit all volumes as Adobe PDF files?

Yes. Proposal submission documents may be submitted in Adobe PDF format. However, offerors should retain editable versions of the original files (e.g., Microsoft Word, Excel, or similar formats) in case Argonne needs to provide comments, redlines, or request clarifications during the evaluation process or in any subsequent stage of the procurement, if applicable.

Proposal Evaluation

Q: In order to evaluate Offerors on past performance under the Business/Management Criteria, may Offerors include a Past Performance section in the Business/Management proposal?

Yes.

Technical

Q: What type of power – C13/C14 or C19/C20?

Proposals must include on-site services for installation into a set of five (5) existing racks (HPE P9K58A) in the Building 240 Data Center, each with four (4) PDUs (HPE R4N79A). The HPE R4N79A provides (24) x IEC 60320/C13 ≤ 12A @208V L-L (15A Peak) and (12) x Cx ≤ 16A @208V L-L (20A Peak).

Q: Is it acceptable to provide a response using 400Gb ethernet adapters instead of the BF-3 P3240 adapter?

The desire for BF-3 P3240 adapters is part a “should-meet” requirement, and as such ALCF will accept responses that perform substitutions, subject to rationale on how the proposal meets the requirement. Responses that align more closely with the parts specified in the SOW will be considered more favorably.

Q: Is there a preference for AMD or Intel CPUs?

There is no particular preference for AMD or Intel CPUs, subject to the other requirements and preferences listed in the SoW. Responses may be submitted including either.

Q: Is there a preference for single-socket or dual-socket systems?

There is no particular preference between single and dual socket configurations; Responses may be submitted including either.

Q: What is the ambient room temperature?

The data center ambient air temperature is highly dependent on location and cooling configuration of installed systems. The area intended for this proposal was measured between 50F-60F at 5ft above floor level in 2025 and supports air-cooled systems. The process of conducting an updated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study to precisely map and optimize airflow for that area is still in progress. Hot aisle containment has been newly installed for these racks and findings from the CFD study will be used to make adjustments, ensuring efficient and precise cooling delivery across all racks.

Q: Are vendors responsible for providing Ethernet cabling?

Cabling between the server nodes and top-of-rack switches as well as between racks, will be provided by ALCF.

Q: Will top of rack switches be installed prior to vendor coming onsite for installation?

Top-of-rack switches will be acquired via a separate procurement and be installed prior to installation.

Q: Will any inter-rack cabling be necessary?

Inter-rack cabling will be performed by ALCF and is not part of this procurement.

Q: Please confirm that liquid-cooling infrastructure is available in the datacenter to support liquid-cooled systems.

The datacenter supported liquid-cooling infrastructure is not available for this proposal. To ensure compatibility with the existing infrastructure, the proposed solution must be entirely air-cooled and installed into five (5) existing racks (HPE P9K58A), each with four (4) PDUs (HPE R4N79A). The area intended for this proposal was measured between 50F-60F at 5ft above floor level in 2025 in support of air-cooled systems.

Q: With respect to the "should meet" specification of each node having 2 x Bluefield-3 B3240 DPUs would options with 1 x B3240 or 2 x B3140 DPUs be considered?

ALCF will consider responses with combinations of B3140 and B3240 GPUs, as alternatives to the “should meet” specification. Responses that are closer to the SOW’s desired bandwidth and port count will be considered more favorably in this dimension. Offerors may provide multiple configurations as part of their response that reflect different configurations if they wish to do so.

Q: For the desired spare parts cache, what would Argonne liked included?

We would like the spare-parts cache to contain at least 2 copies of any field-replaceable hardware component that is not considered fully redundant. This only applies to customer-replaceable components; factory-built permanent equipment or other non-replaceable parts are exempt.

Q: What is the desired warranty period for these servers?

The desired warranty period is at least 3 years; responses may also provide options for a 5 year warranty period.

Q: The second bullet of SOW 3.3.1 Acceptance Testing states “Each server must successfully boot into a standard Linux distribution (the latest stable version of RHEL at the time of acceptance)”. Please clarify if RHEL licenses should be procured as part of the acquisition, or if RHEL should just be demonstrated as booting on the hardware? Will another RHEL compatible distro (e.g. Rocky) suffice?

RHEL Licenses should not be procured as part of the acquisition. Rocky Linux will be sufficient to demonstrate system capability.

Q: Regarding the first bullet of SOW Section 3.3, what is the specific outlet / connector type on the HPE Cray R4N79A PDU?

The HPE R4N79A provides (24) x IEC 60320/C13 ≤ 12A @208V L-L (15A Peak) and (12) x Cx ≤ 16A @208V L-L (20A Peak).

Q: Regarding the fifth bullet of SOW Section 3.3, which states “Offerors will be responsible for installation of copper cabling between server nodes and top-of-rack 1G switches for the management network (RU47, 48)”: Could you please confirm that the Offeror will not be purchasing these cables, and cables will be made available by the site during the installation process?

The copper cabling between servers and top-of-rack switches will be provided by ALCF and made available during the installation process.

Q: SOW Section 3.1 - Please confirm whether the proposed NVIDIA BlueField-3 B3140H single-port 400GbE NIC is acceptable as an equivalent alternative to the specified NVIDIA BlueField-3 B3240 dual-port 400GbE NIC. While the cards differ in architecture and port configuration, the total supported throughput is equivalent at 400Gb. Please confirm that the proposed alternative fully meets all technical, operational, and interoperability requirements.

ALCF will consider responses with combinations of B3140 and B3240 GPUs, as alternatives to the “should meet” specification. Responses that are closer to the SOW’s desired bandwidth and port count will be considered more favorably in this dimension. Offerors may provide multiple configurations as part of their response that reflect different configurations if they wish to do so.

Q: SOW Section 3.2 - The SOW states that acquisition of the Kubernetes software distribution is not within scope of this procurement. Is it desired to have a Linux release pre-installed on the servers?

Pre-installation of a Linux release is necessary only to the extent of demonstrating hardware compatibility. As stated in the SOW, this can be done through the latest RHEL release, or through Rocky Linux as an alternative.

Q: SOW Section 3.3 - The requirement states that the offeror will be required to provide on-site installation services into a set of four (4) existing racks, each with four (4) PDUs. Are cable management arms required?

Cable management arms are present in the existing racks with 6U spacing.

Q: SOW Section 3.3 - Please confirm that the four (4) PDUs per rack, HPER4N79A are existing, on-site and installed in the racks, with power connected.

We confirm that the four (4) HPER4N79A PDUs per rack are existing, on-site, and fully installed within the racks.

However, they are not yet connected to the receptacles. Final power connection is on hold, pending verification and confirmation of the electrical and cooling loads required for the equipment to be installed.

Q: SOW Section 3.3 - Please confirm that top of rack switches are existing and installed in the top of each rack designated for the Artemis cluster installation.

The top-of-rack switches will be installed as part of a separate procurement, prior to installation of Artemis.

Q: SOW Section 3.4 - Please clarify if the required maintenance, support, and monitoring services are expected to be performed by full-time personnel stationed on-site or through a hybrid/remote support model.

A hybrid/remote support model is the preferred practice. Full-time stationing of personnel is not intended as part of this procurement.

Q: SOW Section 3.4 - Will personnel be stationed for the full period of performance?

No.

Q: SOW Section 3.4 - Please clarify the break/fix versus sustainment requirement. Are you looking for software stack support or just hardware and break/fix for the period of performance?

Software support is expected only for the components related to monitoring of the hardware as described in section 3.4 of the SOW. Software support does not include support for the OS or the Kubernetes distribution deployed to the nodes. Hardware support and break/fix is expected on all hardware for the period of performance.

Q: SOW Section 3.4 - Will Artemis cluster be air-gapped networks?

No.

Q: SOW Section 3.4 - When a part is replaced from the spares kit, is it allowed to be sent back to the OEM or is it expected to stay with the customer.

It is not allowed for storage components to be shipped back to the OEM. Shipping other non-storage components is allowed and may be negotiated as part of the award.

Q: SOW Section 6 - Please clarify the type/level of “security investigation” required.

All personnel requiring access to the Building 240 Data Center at Argonne National Laboratory must be U.S. citizens — non-U.S. citizens require an alternative access process and additional documentation, which will require at least 7–10 business days to complete. Prior to site entry, each individual must complete visitor registration through Argonne's Visitor Registration Portal and finish a remote Contractor Safety Orientation (CSO) training, which includes watching a safety video, reviewing supplemental materials, and submitting signed and dated copies of the training card and completion record.

Additional information will be provided on award U. S. Department of Energy laboratory managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC