ABQ Times

Sandia National Laboratories has launched SandiaAI Chat, a new tool aimed at enhancing efficiency for its employees. This initiative makes Sandia the first facility within the nuclear security enterprise to provide access to a separate instance of a large language model.

Project manager Mike Vigil led the web development aspect of this project. He explained that rather than acquiring a corporate license for ChatGPT, Sandia developed its own version in an Azure Cloud environment. "The questions asked by Sandia employees and the corresponding responses are not shared with Microsoft or OpenAI," said Vigil.

The system's development involved a cross-functional team that met regularly starting in late October 2023. The effort culminated in May 2024 after six months of testing. Erica Grong, who managed risk aspects, highlighted the diverse skills within the team as key to their success.

"SandiaAI Chat has all these resources that work together to make sure that our application works, and it is safe, secure and scalable for everyone at Sandia," Vigil noted.

Brian Sims, technical lead for the project, reported that over 10,000 individuals have used SandiaAI at least once. The team followed rigorous testing protocols to ensure safety and performance. "We conducted four series of load tests," Sims explained.

Security measures include content filtering and abuse monitoring. Sims mentioned potential vulnerabilities were shared with Microsoft after being identified by cybersecurity teams.

As for practical applications, Grong remarked on the broad range of use cases discovered post-launch: "We had so many different types of use cases." The tool assists with tasks such as code generation and email composition.

Employees have responded positively to SandiaAI's introduction. Data scientists will soon analyze usage data to assess time and cost savings attributed to the tool. Future developments may include file upload capabilities and image generation features.

"I would say I’m most excited about file upload," Grong commented on upcoming functionalities.

Sims anticipates further advancements: "There are so many neat things that are taking place around this technology."