The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is in the market for a managed high-performance computing (HPC) solution based on the Nvidia HGX architecture.

The system will be used by the Biological Technologies Office's Network of Optimal Dynamic Energy Signatures (NODES) program, which aims to characterize the function of potential biological threats within one hour.

The minimum requirement for the proposal is 50 dedicated, private Nvidia HGX H100 80GB 700W SXM5 8X GPUs, with another 100 "held in reserve for redundancy and surge purposes."

However, companies responding to the contracting opportunity "are encouraged to propose solutions based on the Nvidia Blackwell architecture (e.g., B200, GB200)."

The system is also expected to include 550TB of NFS storage and one x86 compute virtual machine.

The GPU deployment is not required to be in a US data center, contracting notes state, with allied nations also eligible. However, "the Government's evaluation will give preference to solutions hosted entirely within the United States and its territories."

GPUs are required on short notice, with the full 50 expected to be used no later than May 15, 2026. Offers are due May 5.

NODES seeks to develop distributed, data-driven biological discovery by integrating experimental platforms, large-scale biological datasets, and advanced computational methods.