RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT – TECH TRANSFER

AI’s Eyes to Help with Component Inspections

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—At Sandia National Laboratories, a new inspection workflow is taking shape that could help catch tiny defects earlier in the manufacturing process for ceramic components.

Process engineer Jesse Adamczyk is leading the project. “We manufacture ceramic components for nuclear deterrence applications,” Adamczyk said in a release from Sandia National Laboratories. “We realize there’s a big opportunity here.”

Teams from across the Labs are installing new optical and acoustic imaging systems and building an AI-assisted review tool designed to speed inspections while keeping people firmly in the loop.

“We do manual inspections of all our parts. It is extremely time-consuming,” Adamczyk said. “These parts go into various weapon systems.”

AI inspections

The project begins by scanning ceramic billets, the starter pieces that are later manufactured into finished components, using high-throughput imaging systems that create detailed digital records of each billet.

“It’s pricey to get billets to their final component,” Adamczyk said. “If we can identify defects at the billet level, we don’t put all that work into manufacturing the final component.”

The earlier inspections will save time and money.

Right now, inspectors rely heavily on manual microscopes for inspecting final components. It takes one to two years to fully train an operator on the manual inspection process, which is time-consuming and challenging on the eyes.

The new approach for final components is designed to shift that work to a digital workflow in which images can be reviewed at a workstation.

“Right now, an operator looks through a manual microscope for defects. They’re subtle, so they can be hard to find,” Adamczyk said. “We’re setting up software—an AI augmentation interface—where operators can do anomaly detection from their desktops and have AI highlight defects for them.”

Adamczyk emphasized that inspections will not rely solely on AI.

“Operators will double-check to make sure the AI is highlighting real defects, and if there’s a defect AI misses, the operator will catch it,” he said. “AI augmentation is going to be more effective than manual visual inspection and more effective than just letting the AI run loose.”

Adamczyk said this is a big shift, but operators are embracing it to help meet demand.

“They are thrilled to have these technologies coming online, and they’re not going to be replaced. They’re going to be reassigned because we have more work coming into our production floor,” Adamczyk said.

The processes will be set up so that while the components are scanned, operators can work on other tasks. The AI augmentation for active ceramics demonstrates what the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission is designed to accomplish: tackle the nation’s most complex science and technology challenges using AI. In this case, it helps speed up the nuclear deterrence mission.

Looking ahead

Adamczyk said the next few months will be busy on the production floor with the upgrades. In addition to tool installation, engineers are working to develop processes for imaging systems and software for the AI-augmented inspections.

During a visit to the lab one afternoon, employees were eagerly collaborating and learning how the new equipment works, including a recently installed acoustic imaging system. Over the next few months, work documentation will be developed and released, and employees will be trained on the updated processes.

“We have a lot of support for this at the management and leadership level. I have a tremendous team helping,” Adamczyk said. “We’re trying to deploy this workflow on our production floor as an exemplar and then take the same workflow and deploy it to other parts of Sandia and nuclear security enterprise sites. That’s the long-term goal.”

The new imaging systems and AI augmentation tool are scheduled to be up and running by early fall. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s AI for Nuclear Security initiative, led by the Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing, is funding the project.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies, and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.

 

 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to Harness Quantum Computing for Next-generation Magnets

LIVERMORE, Calif.—Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently announced it was selected to lead a project that will receive $4.1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as part of the Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry (QC3) program.

According to a release from LLNL, the QC3 program seeks to develop and apply quantum algorithms to accelerate simulations of chemistry and materials science to advance commercial energy applications. These applications are reported to range from superconducting power lines to advanced batteries, engineered rare-earth magnets, and breakthrough catalytic systems.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will develop quantum and machine learning-accelerated software tools and apply them to discovering ultra-strong, lightweight magnets that are crucial for electronic motors, generators, and high-performance information technology. The core innovation is a hybrid classical-quantum algorithm that can accurately predict material performance, LLNL stated in the release.

The result could have a huge impact on how America uses energy.

“Anytime you want to convert energy between electrical forms and mechanical forms, like in wind turbines, electric vehicles, or hydro power, you need to have a magnet that mediates that process,” said LLNL scientist and project lead Ilon Joseph, in the release. “If we can do much better calculations of magnetic materials science, we can find new kinds of magnetic materials that can power our energy technology.”

New magnet materials could circumvent China’s critical material supply chain and offer improvements in weight, strength, robustness, and resistance to corrosion, the release stated.

According to LLNL, even slight enhancements could also decrease the resources needed to power artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology (IT). Much of the energy consumption in AI and IT comes from writing and erasing information stored in memory.

For MRAM-based chips, which store data using magnetic states, reading and writing requires flipping the magnetization of tiny thin-film magnets. Because AI and IT are predicted to dominate U.S. electricity consumption by the end of the decade, magnetic memory that takes less energy to flip—even by 20 percent—would lower energy costs significantly.

To discover these new magnetic materials, the team at LLNL is combining various fields of expertise. Researchers at the Laboratory created some of the most advanced codes in the world for simulating electronic structure and realistic materials at the atomic scale. Those tools currently run on El Capitan, the most powerful supercomputer in the world.

“We will connect our state-of-the-art electronic structure simulation code running on high-performance computing systems, such as El Capitan, and offload hard quantum aspects of the problem to quantum frameworks,” said LLNL scientist Alfredo Correa Tedesco, in the release. “Of course, making those quantum resources work is the most challenging part—but it is also where we have the most to gain in terms of capabilities.”

Adapting these materials simulations to run on a quantum computer will offer even better performance. The magnetic spins present in a material represent a many-body quantum system. Although modeling them with a classical computer is challenging, modeling them with a quantum computer is efficient—a natural fit.

However, almost none of the algorithms that we use on today’s classical computing hardware will be good for quantum computers. In this case, LLNL’s main task lies in the translation from the classical to the quantum algorithm.

For example, Joseph has a track record of developing efficient quantum algorithms for solving the partial differential equations needed to simulate fluids and plasmas. He will focus on developing and implementing efficient quantum algorithms for the direct simulation of quantum magnets.

For useful quantum calculations, the scientists will need to focus on quantum error correction, which is essential to obtain a realistic calculation that beats a classical computer. With many physical qubits—on the order of 10,000—they plan to group them together and create enough redundancy to generate 100 so-called “logical qubits.” Although some of the physical qubits might be wrong, the error correction protocol ensures that the physical calculation comes together to form a correct solution in terms of logical qubits, according to LLNL.

That requires significant quantum hardware that, as of today, is not yet available. The LLNL researchers expect to begin working with a prototype from their hardware partner, one of the leaders in the field of neutral atom computing, in about a year. Then they’ll have the remaining two years of the project to make their algorithm work, tying the results of the quantum computation to a machine-learning algorithm that will flag magnetic materials with the potential to transform the energy landscape.

“This is a project that’s almost on the edge of the impossible. We’re on the cusp,” said Joseph. “But even if we fail, if we can prove we are on the path to making a quantum computer that can do these calculations within the next 2-3 years, that will be a major victory.”

Source:

https://www.llnl.gov/article/54276/llnl-harness-quantum-computing-next-generation-magnets

 

 

Glaring Impact, TAOS Trajectory, Quantum Boom

Three Sandia projects were recognized for their significant impact.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Question: What do a solar glare analysis tool, the trajectory and optimization software known as TAOS, and the quantum boom in New Mexico all have in common?

Answer: They were all developed at Sandia National Laboratories and are all winners of the 2026 Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) awards for Excellence in Technology Transfer. In an April release, Sandia highlighted the significant impacts of these projects.

2026 FLC Awards

Each year, the FLC recognizes outstanding partnerships that help turn cutting-edge research at national laboratories and research centers into impactful products and services in the marketplace. This year, there are 27 FLC award winners and seven honorable mentions. Three of those projects were born at Sandia.

Together, the awards reflect the range of Sandia’s impact, from improving safety around solar installations and supporting aerospace flight analysis, to helping build a growing quantum ecosystem in New Mexico.

Solar Glare Hazard Analysis Tool/Forge Solar

Solar energy installations began spreading across the country in the 2010s after the Department of Energy launched its SunShot Initiative. While it represented a huge step toward making solar more affordable, it didn’t take long for some to recognize a glaring problem, including former longtime Sandia senior scientist Cliff Ho.

The massive installations, many of which were built in open areas near airports, were creating blinding glare, putting pilots, air traffic controllers, motorists, and communities in danger. With the Federal Aviation Administration, DOE, Air Force, and Department of Transportation all flagging safety concerns, there was a big push to quickly solve the problem. That is where Ho and Sandia came in.

With the help of Sandia graduate-student intern Cianan Sims, Ho created the Solar Glare Hazard Analysis Tool.

The web-based software mapping allows users to quickly locate a site, draw an outline of a proposed array, and identify hazardous glare throughout the year. If glare is found, the tool calculates and suggests alternative configurations. The tool can also predict annual energy production when evaluating design layouts and locations to maximize energy production while mitigating glare impacts.

Ho and Sims won an R&D100 Award for the technology in 2013.

The tool was made available for free on a Sandia-managed website and provided guidance to 6,000 users in 60 countries. As the initial DOE-supported phase of the project wound down around 2015, commercialization became the next step.

By that time, Sims had moved on from Sandia and had started his own software engineering business, Sims Industries LLC. This provided an opportunity for him and Ho to work together again. With the help of Sandia licensing executive Bob Westervelt, Sims licensed the tool, added new features, and renamed it ForgeSolar.

Fast forward to 2026, and the tool is now used in 140 countries, with an average of 20,000 solar glare analyses performed annually. Among the users are the 10 busiest airports in the world.

The FLC agrees the technology is a prime example of a national laboratory harnessing its creativity and resources to address a significant global need, awarding it the Impact Award.

TAOS

While the name Taos may bring to mind the popular tourist town in northern New Mexico, it is also the name of a flight analysis tool developed at Sandia in 1995 for planning research rocket launches.

At the time, creator David Salguero had no idea that TAOS, short for Trajectory Analysis and Optimization Software, would go on to become a critical asset for government organizations, space companies, and the commercial space market.

When it was created, TAOS stood out from other available software tools. Existing software was often tailored to specific problems.

TAOS combined multiple trajectory-solving capabilities into one analysis and optimization package, supporting every step of safety analysis, from conceptual design through postflight analysis. Above all, TAOS was designed to be intuitive and remains so today.

In 2012, TAOS was licensed to the Federal Aviation Administration and later approved by NASA as an acceptable safety analysis tool. Since then, it has been used to model everything from hypersonic re-entry vehicles and satellites to subsonic cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and sensor darts.

With the rise of the commercial space industry in recent years, the reach of TAOS has grown further. But getting it approved for use within that industry was not easy. Because TAOS fell under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), licensing it for broader use in the commercial space industry required extensive coordination with Sandia and DOE legal teams, as well as creativity in establishing a path for distribution.

Sandia was successful in its efforts and, to date, has licensed the software to six major rocket companies and to more than 200 users under government contracts. TAOS is now used by the companies that accounted for 84 percent of the commercial rockets launched in the U.S. in 2024.

The FLC recognized that effort with its Excellence in Technology Transfer Award, honoring Sandia’s outstanding work collaborating to move a specialized lab-developed technology to the marketplace.

The software’s success, colleagues say, has relied on years of contributions from dozens of people in addition to Salguero, who retired from Sandia in 2013. They include aeronautical engineers Michael Sparapany, Michael Grant, Jon Christensen, and Nathaniel Grady; David Wick; licensing and contract administrators Amanda Malherbe and Sandra Pino; and administrative assistants Elisabeta Cosarca Cordova and Victoria Martinez.

“TAOS is where it is today due to the hard work of several individuals, but it wouldn’t be what it is today without the foresight of its original author Dave Salguero,” Sparapany said. “The fact that TAOS has stood the test of time and is one of the preferred tools nationwide is a testament to Dave’s original architecture.”

New Mexico’s quantum future

Sandia and its partners also were recognized for a different kind of technology transfer effort, one aimed not at a single tool or product, but at helping grow New Mexico’s quantum future.

Over the past two years, Sandia has worked with other national labs, academic partners, state institutions, and private firms to help advance quantum innovation and economic development in the state. That work has included partnerships focused on commercialization, workforce development, facilities, company growth, and long-term industry presence. They include the following programs:

• Elevate Quantum, a $127 million grant-funded program to accelerate quantum commercialization through public-private partnerships with more than 140 members.
• Quantum Frontiers Project, a memorandum of agreement between the state of New Mexico and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an industry presence through the development of practical quantum computers and partnerships with private industry.
• New Mexico Quantum Venture Studio, a $25 million initiative through the Roadrunner Venture Studios and the New Mexico Economic Development Department to create advanced facilities and foster collaboration.
• The Quantum Learning Lab and Technician Bootcamp, led by Central New Mexico Community College and Sandia, and funded through the federal “Elevate Quantum” Tech Hub.
• A pilot program that funds $100,000 grants to quantum companies that establish operations in the state.

Together, those efforts are helping build the infrastructure needed for an in-state quantum sector. In a year’s time, New Mexico went from having zero quantum companies to at least five.

The FLC awarded Sandia and its government partners the State and Local Economic Development Award for that broader work to help position New Mexico as a center for quantum science and technology.

Key players in that work include Sandia quantum business development lead Jake Douglass and quantum physicist Megan Ivory. The pair has a long history of working to foster quantum in the state, including launching QCaMP back in 2022 to introduce quantum concepts at the high school level. In the years since, they have remained leading voices in the quantum movement and advocates for growing New Mexico’s role in the field.

“A major part of making New Mexico the place to be for quantum is by building new and innovative public-private partnerships,” Douglass said.

“We’re excited to see companies taking advantage of these programs and people growing their businesses,” Ivory said.

The DARPA partnership alone is expected to bring up to $120 million in funding over the next four years to expand research, engineering, and testing in the quantum realm.

“New Mexico has a strong history of being a crucial player in world-changing technology development. The field of quantum science is at an inflection point, and New Mexico is the place to be to realize the impact of these emerging technologies,” Douglass said.