Managed GPU Environment Cuts DARPA NODES Model Training From Months to Days

Parallel Works and CoreWeave announced on September 9, 2026, the deployment of a fully managed AI and high-performance computing platform for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Network of Optimal Dynamic Energy Signatures (NODES) biological research program.

The platform is delivered through Parallel Works’ ACTIVATE control plane and built on CoreWeave’s AI cloud platform. It provides researchers with access to the large-scale computing, orchestration software, and technical support required for advanced biological modeling and AI work, without building and managing that infrastructure directly. The joint release was datelined Chicago and Livingston, New Jersey.

The companies said delivering AI cloud infrastructure can take months, which can delay research and consume technical resources. With a fully managed environment, they said, researchers can train AI models and run complex simulations within days rather than weeks or months.

NODES addresses complex challenges in the dynamics of biological systems, work the companies describe as requiring large-scale, dependable computing resources, with rapid access to dedicated GPU resources letting program performers pursue simulation and modeling campaigns without the delays of accessing and managing infrastructure.

Dedicated Compute and Unified Orchestration

Researchers access the environment through a single sign-on, with ACTIVATE combining direct support, dedicated compute, unified orchestration, and operational visibility.

Parallel Works operates the environment for DARPA. ACTIVATE handles user onboarding, identity and access management, provisioning, scheduling, and reporting, with around-the-clock direct-to-expert support covering both the platform itself and researcher applications.

The environment includes a dedicated reservation on NVIDIA HGX H100 systems, enterprise-scale storage, and high-speed NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand networking. ACTIVATE divides the reservation across the NODES research teams, so each team holds a guaranteed allocation and can draw on shared capacity when it is available.

For orchestration, ACTIVATE gives DARPA researchers uniform access to SUNK and CoreWeave Kubernetes Service from a single platform. SUNK is CoreWeave’s Slurm on Kubernetes offering, which runs workloads of different kinds and sizes within the same underlying compute environment. ACTIVATE manages the accounts, allocations, and sharing policies that determine how the research teams use those resources.

ACTIVATE also supplies the program and each research team with usage and utilization reporting across the environment. CoreWeave’s observability stack monitors the health of the underlying fleet so problems are caught at the infrastructure layer before they consume time on a multi-week run.

Executive Statements

Parallel Works CEO Matthew Shaxted framed the deployment around how researchers spend their time. “DARPA needs researchers focused on biology, not on building infrastructure or managing compute environments,” Shaxted said, adding that pairing CoreWeave’s AI cloud platform with ACTIVATE gives NODES teams immediate access to the AI resources they need.

CoreWeave co-founder, chairman and CEO Michael Intrator said the company has spent years building an AI cloud that leading AI labs and AI-native companies depend on. “With Parallel Works, we’re bringing those same capabilities to the NODES program,” Intrator said.

The NODES Program

DARPA describes NODES as an effort to develop a deep learning tool, informed by the principles of biophysics, that analyzes large numbers of protein sequences and predicts their biological functions by identifying telltale patterns of protein movement, according to the agency’s NODES program page.

The agency states it aims to characterize the function of potential biological threats within one hour. DARPA describes that speed as crucial for developing effective medical countermeasures for warfighters and for staying ahead of biotechnology advancements that could lead to new and emerging biothreats. The agency also states NODES will provide a secure system for classifying and monitoring biological threats, which it describes as vital for intelligence agencies seeking to enhance bio-surveillance.

The program page describes three functional areas. Folding treats protein sequences as encoding an ensemble of molecular movements whose landscape determines function. Binding covers diffusion-driven protein-protein interactions that act as rate-determining bottlenecks in biological functions such as signaling and recognition. Cooperativity addresses how modifications and environmental changes influence protein function through cooperative or allosteric coupling, which the page notes can be controlled to deliver biomanufacturing benefits.

NODES is administered by DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office under program manager Abhishek Singharoy. The program solicitation was published on July 31, 2025, and the program’s published FAQ states that awards will be executed as Other Transactions for Prototypes, with total costs not exceeding $1.7 million in government funding.

The Companies Behind the Deployment

Parallel Works provides managed high-performance computing and AI environments through ACTIVATE, a control plane that unifies identity, provisioning, scheduling, allocation, and support across cloud and on-premises computing providers. The company operates production environments for federal defense and science programs and for commercial research organizations. It spun out of Argonne National Laboratory in 2015 and is headquartered in Chicago.

Separately from the NODES announcement, Parallel Works describes its ACTIVATE High Security Platform as an IL5-authorized hybrid, multi-cloud control plane for the U.S. Department of Defense, and states it was granted a DoD Authority to Operate by the High Performance Computing Modernization Program in August 2025. The company lists capabilities including unified control across AWS GovCloud, Azure, Google Public Sector, and Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers, along with CAC and YubiKey authentication and around-the-clock security monitoring.

CoreWeave was established in 2017 and completed its public listing on Nasdaq in March 2025.