Request for Proposal: ALCF Artemis Compute Cluster

The Department of Energy Office of Science, procuring through UChicago Argonne, LLC (operator of Argonne National Laboratory), seeks hardware, software licensing, installation services, and five-year maintenance support for the ALCF Artemis Compute Cluster, with proposals due June 12 and questions due May 20. Addendum No. 2 issued June 3 modified rack installation requirements from five to four HPE P9K58A racks and clarified spare parts handling.

Place of performance is Building 240 at Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois. The cluster comprises 36 nodes, each requiring a minimum of 128 physical cores with confidential computing support (AMD SEV-SNP, ARM CCA, or equivalent), 1TB DDR5 memory, 480GB OS storage in hardware RAID 1, and 12–16TB local storage. Networking demands separate 1Gbps in-band and out-of-band management NICs plus two NVIDIA Bluefield-3 adapters (B3140 or B3240 combinations accepted) with 400Gb capability. Air-cooling is mandatory. Installation must complete within 30 days of delivery. Proposals must address compatibility with multiple Kubernetes distributions (Red Hat OpenShift, Rancher Harvester/RKE2, Talos Linux), include rack diagrams, describe five-year 9×5 next-business-day on-site support with spare parts caching (at least two copies of non-redundant field-replaceable components), cybersecurity vulnerability remediation procedures, and on-premises hardware monitoring. Acceptance testing includes successful RHEL boot, bill-of-materials verification, hardware discovery, and firmware currency confirmation.

NAICS 334111 (Electronic Computer Manufacturing); PSC 7B20. No set-aside applies. Award will be made on best-value basis with Business/Management Proposal as pass/fail threshold for contractor responsibility (financial capability, past performance, delivery schedule); Technical Proposal rated Outstanding through Unacceptable across Overall Technical Requirements, Maintenance and Support, and Installation Services; and Price Proposal evaluated for cost realism and reasonableness. All proposals assessed for overall risk (Low, Moderate, or High). Firm fixed-price proposals required, though Addendum No. 1 permits structured pre-award pricing adjustments (Economic Price Adjustment, tiered pricing) if clearly defined, with favorable evaluation relative to inflated hedging pricing; post-award pricing adjustments prohibited. Proposals valid 120 days post-close. Warranty minimum three years; five-year optional coverage desired. Contractors must carry $2 million general liability per occurrence, $1 million auto liability, $2 million professional liability, and obtain DOE/Argonne additional-insured endorsements with primary and non-contributory coverage. Proposal submission via email to atkinson@anl.gov in three separate non-intermingled attachments (Technical, Business/Management, Cost/Price).