In the near future, Argonne scientists will have access to a world-class research center that supports large-scale computation and a venue conducive to interdisciplinary meetings.

Construction of the more than 200,000 square-foot, seven-story-tall Theory and Computing Sciences (TCS) building is under way near Argonne's North Gate. When completed, the building will provide a much-needed infrastructure for large-scale computers, computational laboratories, a digital conference and meeting area as well as a consolidated Argonne library.

"The Theory and Computing Sciences facility is a critical building block in the modernization plan for the entire laboratory," said Bo Arnold, deputy chief operations officer.

TCS will provide space for up to 750 offices and will house the Mathematics and Computer Sciences (MCS), Environmental Science (EVS) and Computing and Information Systems (CIS) divisions, as well as the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and Computation Institute researchers and staff. The Argonne library will be consolidated from five locations on campus to a modern space on two floors of TCS.

There will be three large, multi-story computational laboratory spaces with raised floors to support the research of the Futures Lab, CIS and MCS divisions. The Supercomputer Support Facility is a 25,000 square-foot wing in which the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and other key computing projects will conduct research on state-of-the-art computing systems that include the IBM BlueGene P, recently named the fastest supercomputer in the world for open science.