The Intel spinout is strengthening its position in high-performance computing as it competes with Nvidia and Broadcom in advanced networking.
Cornelis Networks, a networking technology company spun out of Intel in 2020, has secured a key deployment in the U.S. national security sector, with its chips being used in a new supercomputer designed to support nuclear weapons research.
The company announced that its networking technology has been selected for the “Lynx” supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The system links 952 computing nodes and is part of a broader $70 million initiative by three U.S. national laboratories operating under the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The program aims to develop cost-effective, high-performance supercomputers using commercially available hardware components. These systems are used to conduct highly sophisticated simulations that help scientists study and maintain the U.S. nuclear stockpile without conducting live nuclear tests.
Cornelis is developing Omni-Path, a high-performance networking technology designed for large-scale computing environments where workloads must be distributed across hundreds or thousands of interconnected computers. The company is positioning the technology as an alternative to networking solutions offered by major players such as Nvidia and Broadcom.
A key feature of the Omni-Path architecture is its intelligent traffic management capability. The technology dynamically routes data across a network, allowing information to bypass congested pathways and reach its destination more efficiently, even if that requires taking a longer route through the system.
Intel remains a minority shareholder in Cornelis following the spinout. The latest deployment highlights the company’s growing presence in the high-performance computing market, where demand is rising for advanced networking solutions capable of supporting increasingly complex scientific and research workloads.
