Located at NASA’s Modular Supercomputing Facility within the Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Athena now stands as the agency’s top-performing system. It exceeds the performance and energy efficiency of earlier machines such as Aitken and Pleiades. After completing a beta testing phase, the system became available to current users in January and delivers more than 20 petaflops of peak computing performance, while also helping reduce operational costs associated with large-scale supercomputing.
High-performance systems like Athena play a central role across the agency. They enable detailed simulations of rocket launches, support the design of advanced aircraft, and power the training of large artificial intelligence models that can analyze enormous volumes of data to reveal new scientific discoveries. Access to Athena is available not only to NASA personnel but also to external researchers who support NASA programs and apply for computing time.
The supercomputer’s name was chosen through an internal naming contest held in March 2025 among employees in the High-End Computing Capability program. “Athena,” named after the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, was selected in part because of her mythological connection as the half-sister of Artemis.
Overseen by NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer, the High-End Computing Capability program follows a flexible, hybrid approach to computing. This model combines on-site supercomputers like Athena with additional resources such as commercial cloud services, allowing teams to select the most suitable platform for simulations, AI development, or large-scale data processing.
As NASA missions grow more complex, the agency plans to continue investing in advanced computing infrastructure. With Athena now online, NASA is strengthening the digital backbone that will support faster, smarter, and more efficient exploration in the years ahead.
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