NNSA, LLNL officials celebrate completion of critical Lab digital infrastructure upgrade

Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) celebrated the completion of the Digital Infrastructure Capability Expansion (DICE) facility on June 9, marking a major milestone in a decade-long effort to modernize one of the Lab’s most critical infrastructure systems.

The 13,000-square-foot facility, three times larger than the Lab’s previous telecommunications building, replaces a pre-Internet-era facility built in 1985 and will serve as LLNL’s main point of entry for networking and communications. Designed to provide LLNL with a modern, resilient digital backbone for decades to come, DICE will support secure communications, data movement and mission-critical systems tied to the Lab’s national security work.

LLNL Director Kim Budil said the need for DICE was driven by the growth of data science, AI and digital connectivity, but became especially clear after leaders examined the Lab’s aging former communications facility, which she described as a major concern for LLNL’s connectivity to the outside world.

“This was one of the most significant risks facing the site … and the importance of this facility can’t be overstated,” Budil said. “We are at a critical moment for the Laboratory and for the nation. We have incredibly important work to do, and we’re in the midst of an incredible revolution in science and technology. This facility will be one of the key enablers.”

The ceremony included remarks from James Wolff, NNSA associate administrator for Information Management and chief information officer; Florence Tindle, manager of the NNSA Livermore Field Office (LFO); Sue Marlais, LLNL chief information officer (CIO); and Brian Cracchiola, deputy director of Laboratory Infrastructure. Remarks were followed by a ribbon-cutting and tours of the new facility.

Wolff said DICE is part of a broader push by NNSA to modernize physical and digital infrastructure across the nuclear security enterprise, adding that infrastructure is central to NNSA’s ability to meet mission demands with urgency.

“All of our capabilities are digital now; they’re all digitally enabled,” Wolff said. “We need the capacity to produce at speed and at scale, and [DICE] represents that. We need the ability to bring our best capability forward to meet the demands of our strategic deterrent, and to do that as quickly as possible.”

Opening the ceremony, Cracchiola said DICE began more than a decade ago, when a group of LLNL leaders brought NNSA a portfolio of proposed line-item projects aimed at addressing critical infrastructure needs across the site.

“Not only does this new facility support the backbone of our daily life — it’s going to enable us to provide the tools for the next generation of top-tier scientists and engineers, and it’s going to continue to enable us in our ability to protect the nation,” Cracchiola said.

The DICE project required close coordination among NNSA, LFO, LLNL’s Office of the CIO, Laboratory Infrastructure, Operations & Business, the Project Management Office, construction and safety teams and contractor partners. Contractors included PTS Data Center Solutions (prime contractor), Bockman & Woody (electrical), NVH (mechanical and plumbing), LB Construction (steel), Pacific Coast General Engineering (civil), DGA Design (design architects), Wayne E. Swisher (concrete) and HP Communications (communications).

During tours of the facility, project team members described DICE as a major step forward in capacity, resilience and maintainability. DICE includes a state-of-the-art data center, communications vault, overhead cabling, high-capacity fiber infrastructure and room for future expansion. It was designed with redundancy throughout its core systems, including utility-level electrical redundancy, smart uninterruptible power systems, redundant cooling and network pathways that allow maintenance and upgrades without interrupting service.

Project team members said DICE will support networking and communications for more than 600 buildings across the main LLNL site and Site 300, with significantly more power and network capacity than the facility it replaces. The building also is designed to Tier 3 and LEED Gold standards, with efficient energy and cooling systems.

Speakers said that capacity and resiliency will be increasingly important as LLNL supports growing demands in high-performance computing, AI, secure communications, data-intensive science and digital enterprise services.

“This is not just a facility upgrade,” Budil said. “This is the foundation that’s going to build our future over the next decade as we bring AI, the full realization of the exascale capabilities we have on site and the data demands that come along with doing this mission of the 21st century.”

Speakers also noted the facility was completed on time and under budget despite challenges that included the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions and complex site constraints. DICE is also one of the first line-item projects to benefit from NNSA’s Project Management for Non-Nuclear, Non-Complex Capital Asset Acquisition directive to streamline construction contracting and delivery, an approach that resulted in significant cost savings for the facility and allowed the project team to accelerate completion and demonstrate that commercial approaches can be used at scale to deliver infrastructure faster and more cost effectively.

“You accepted the challenge,” LFO’s Tindle told the project team. “You delivered an outstanding product. This is the product that we use when we’re challenged with infrastructure investments in NNSA and the ability to manage those successfully. I get to stand up and say we did it. We’ve done it with DICE, we did it with other buildings, and Livermore is the model.”

With the building complete, LLNL CIO Marlais said LLNL’s information technology teams are preparing for the next major phase: migrating systems into the new facility and bringing DICE fully online.

“For those of us that are responsible for information technology at the Lab, this facility represents confidence,” Marlais said. “It’s confidence that we’re going to be able to deliver the infrastructure and sustain the mission needs going forward, adapt to change and support the innovation that’s going to come out of this Laboratory for decades.”

Marlais added that the transition from the old facility to DICE will require significant work from LLNL’s IT teams over the coming months.

“It’s going to be a lot of hard work, but you can do it,” she said. “This is what you guys do every day.”

Tours were led by Mark Pettit, LLNL principal deputy chief information officer, and other members of the project team.

In her closing, Budil thanked the Laboratory Infrastructure, construction and safety teams, LLNL’s IT organization, LFO and contractor partners for navigating years of challenges and making the facility a reality.

“I’m really proud of this team, and all of you, and what you have built, and what we will do from this point forward,” Budil said.