"AI is not a new revolution, but a logical extension of the scientific innovations that have continued for the past 80 years."
Thomas Mason, director of the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory, said this on the 3rd at the SK AI Summit 2025 held at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul. Mason said, "AI will not remain merely a tool for industrial automation but will become an 'acceleration engine' that can double the productivity of scientific research," adding, "That innovation will act as a feedback mechanism that moves the entire economy."
Los Alamos National Laboratory (hereafter Los Alamos) led the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and has been regarded as a cradle of U.S. science and technology for the past 80 years. In his lecture, Mason said, "Since the 1940s in Oppenheimer's time, we have used computing as a core tool for research and development," recalling, "In 1945, women scientists who calculated by hand served as 'human computers,' and in 1976, we introduced the world's first Cray supercomputer, opening a new chapter in scientific computing."
He continued, "At the time, the market was so small that IBM estimated 'five computers would be enough to meet global demand,' but Los Alamos's demand grew that industry," adding, "Today, AI is walking the same path." He emphasized a virtuous cycle in which technology born of scientific need grows the industry, and the industry in turn accelerates scientific progress.
After the Cold War, when physical experiments became difficult due to the halt of nuclear testing, Los Alamos pivoted to simulation research based on high performance computing (HPC). Mason said, "The supercomputer Roadrunner that we built at the time was the machine that opened the era of petaflops (1,000 trillion operations per second)," adding, "Recently, we introduced next-generation supercomputers such as Crossroads and Venado, dramatically boosting computing power."
In particular, this speech mentioned cooperation with SK hynix several times. He explained, "The Crossroads supercomputer recently installed is based on SK hynix's high bandwidth memory (HBM)," adding, "It brought far greater performance improvements than central processing units (CPUs) and made possible new research consolidating AI and physics simulation." He added, "Collaboration with SK hynix will be an important step in expanding the limits of high performance computing."
Los Alamos is also working with Nvidia to apply AI to fusion research. Mason said, "Fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) are so expensive and complex that a single shot costs $1 million (about 1.4 billion won)," adding, "If AI agentic systems assist with experiment design and optimization, we can achieve results much faster and more efficiently." He said, "AI does not replace existing simulations. Rather, it will be an auxiliary engine that intelligently allocates experimental and computing resources to maximize productivity."
Recently, it also began cooperation with OpenAI. He said, "OpenAI delivered the weights of its advanced reasoning model to our lab in encrypted form," adding, "We installed this model on the research supercomputer Venado and are experimenting with how much large language models (LLMs) can accelerate scientific research." Mason explained, "Because research was only possible in an air-gapped environment like this, OpenAI was able to share its core asset."
He also said, "Eighty years of experimental data and materials property data are a vast asset of human science," adding, "If AI trains on this massive data, research efficiency will grow explosively." He continued, "A new industry is opening at the intersection of AI, computing, and memory technologies," adding, "SK Group, which has key elements such as energy, data center infrastructure, and HBM, will be an important pillar of this trend."
Mason said, "If AI changes the speed of science, it will also accelerate innovation across the entire economy," adding, "Los Alamos will continue to work with industry to help solve the most difficult scientific problems facing humanity." He said, "AI is not just a technology but a force that redesigns science itself."