Overview The Strategic Computing Complex, which was later named the Nicholas C. Metropolis Center for Modeling and Simulation is a 303,000 SF structure built to house “Q”, one of the world’s largest and most capable computers. The center features a specially designed 43,500 SF computer room (nearly the size of a football field), supported by electrical and mechanical rooms in excess of 60,000 SF. The facility infrastructure is designed to be scalable, with mechanical and electrical equipment installed to support the power and cooling requirements for up to 30 TeraOps (or 30 trillion floating point operations per second) of computing capability. As requirements go beyond the installed capabilities, electrical and mechanical equipment can be added in increments to expand the computing capability to 100 TeraOps. Maximum flexibility has been designed into this one of a kind facility with computer cooling adaptable to water or air-cooled computers. This facility will house about 300 of our nation’s brightest nuclear weapons designers, computer scientists, engineers, and other researchers who will extend the cutting edge of simulation and modeling development in support of our nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program.

Details This Design-Build Project required the complete separation of classified and unclassified Mechanical and Electrical systems for security purposes including HVAC Systems, as well as secured and non-secured power and communications. The facility is fed by two separate 15kV underground services, which connect to two outdoor 15kV SF6 switchgear lineups with the capacity to serve 11 megawatts of power for existing and future loads. The 15kV outdoor switchgear lineups connect to seven installed 15kV-480/277V indoor double-ended unit substations and one 15kV-4,160V substation for connected building and computer loads. The existing computer loads are connected through three 1,670 KVA rotary UPS systems and future space and system capacity has been provided for three additional 15kV-480/277V double-ended substations and nine 1,670 KVA rotary UPS systems.