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Comment by newfocogi | Hacker News Reader

Once again, I am quite surprised by the sudden uptick of AI content on HN coming out of LANL. Does anyone know if its just getting posted to HN and staying on the first page suddenly, or is this a change in strategy for the lab? Even so, I don't see the other NatLabs showing up like this.

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Probably because they're hosting an exascale-class cluster with a bazillion GH200s. Also, they launched a new "National Security AI Office".

The primary pool of money for DOE labs is through a program called "Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security and Technology (FASST)," replacing the Exascale Computing Project. Compared to other labs, LANL historically does not have many dedicated ML/AI groups but they have recently spun up an entire branch to help secure as much of that FASST money as possible.

I imagine the mood at the national labs right now is pretty panicky. They will be looking to get involved with more real-world applications than they traditionally have been, and will also want to appear more engaged with trendy technologies.

I am not sure why HN has mostly LANL posts. Otherwise though it is a combination of things. Machine learning applications for NATSec & fundamental research have become more important (see FASST, proposed last year), the current political environment makes AI funding and applications more secure and easier to chase, and some of this is work that has already been going on but getting greater publicity for both of those reasons.

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