NNSA and DOE Office of Science leaders visit the Lab

2026-02-12 — Darío Gil, left, Brandon Williams, center, and Thom Mason.

Brandon Williams, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the Department of Energy and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Darío Gil, Under Secretary for Science at DOE, visited Los Alamos National Laboratory on Feb. 11, where they met with Laboratory leadership and addressed employees during a fireside chat.

Williams and Gil discussed priority areas for the administration, including weapons modernization, pit production, the Genesis Mission, quantum computing and artificial intelligence for NNSA and DOE missions.

“Urgency and shifting to production focus — those are my priorities,” Williams said. “We (NNSA) make weapons that deter our enemies, protect our allies and our homeland, and I care deeply about ensuring we are successful in our deterrence mission.”

Providing perspective from DOE, Gil said we are in a unique moment in the world of computation right now, and the Genesis Mission is well suited to ensure the U.S. maintains a strategic advantage in this realm. “This is without a doubt the most exciting time in computing since the 1940s,” he said. “Genesis aims to combine new computing technologies and AI to transform science and engineering.”

Gil added that the Genesis Mission has two key tenets: building a platform of infrastructure and software across the DOE complex and executing a portfolio of lighthouse challenges spanning national security, science and energy. He also emphasized the importance of partnering with academia and industry to leverage all the country’s vast AI supercomputing capabilities.

In an evolving geopolitical landscape, Los Alamos, NNSA and DOE are essential to the nation’s prosperity.

“Production and deterrence are core to our missions, but we also have a critical role in the broader technological and economic competition,” Lab Director Thom Mason said. “We make tangible contributions to deterrence while also serving as a key part of the nation’s technological and economic infrastructure.”

At the end of the fireside chat, Williams and Mason presented the Flanged Tritium Waste Container team with the Administrator’s Silver Award, one of NNSA’s highest honors, for their work on processing the containers and safely shipping them for permanent disposal in Texas. The full team consists of 48 employees across the Laboratory.

“This was a true team achievement,” Williams said. “It is so important that we operate in partnership with our local communities and be good stewards of our enterprise.”

Later in the day, Williams toured the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility, an important tool that ensures the safety, security and effectiveness of nuclear weapons in the nation’s stockpile. Williams and Gil also visited the Plutonium Facility where he diamond stamped a plutonium pit, signifying its readiness for deployment to the U.S. nuclear stockpile at “war reserve” quality.

Under Secretary Gil toured the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), which provides the scientific underpinnings in nuclear physics and material science needed to ensure the safety and surety of the nuclear stockpile into the future.