NASA just launched 'Athena'—its fastest supercomputer ever
NASA has rolled out Athena, its new supercomputer at Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Clocking in at over 20 petaflops, Athena is a big step up from previous systems like Aitken and Pleiades.
The launch follows a beta testing period and will support NASA's missions and other cutting-edge research.
What will Athena actually do?
Athena will help NASA run rocket launch simulations, design next-gen aircraft, crunch massive datasets, and train AI models on a huge scale.
Fun fact: the name was picked by NASA staff in March 2025 after the Greek goddess Athena (who's Artemis's half-sister).
Bonus—Athena can also team up with commercial cloud platforms for even more computing muscle.
Who gets to use it?
Access isn't open for everyone—NASA researchers and external scientists can apply for time, and the system is part of NASA's High-End Computing Capability portfolio managed by NASA's Office of the Chief Science Data Officer.
As Kevin Murphy puts it, "Exploration has always driven NASA to the edge of what's computationally possible."
The supercomputer lives at the Modular Supercomputing Facility at Ames.