The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History lays out the entire history of the development of nuclear technology and weapons. The museum displays a full-scale panoramic timeline of authentic Atomic Age weaponry and technologies.
Another major player in Albuquerque's technology landscape is Sandia National Laboratories, born during World War II's Manhattan Project. Sandia's primary mission is to implement the nation's nuclear weapons policies through research, development and testing related to nuclear weapons. Sandia National Laboratories includes government-owned facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Livermore, California; Tonopah, Nevada; and Kauai, Hawaii. The Albuquerque lab serves as the headquarters and largest of the laboratories. Sandia's work includes maintaining the reliability and surety of nuclear weapons systems, performing research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and contributing solutions to the problem of hazardous wastes resulting from the nuclear weapons program. However, Sandia is also heavily involved in non-weapons research, including initiatives in computational biology, mathematics (through its Computer Science Research Institute), materials science, alternative energy, psychology and cognitive science. Sandia hosts ASCI Thor's Hammer, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, which replaced the decommissioned ASCI Red. Sandia is also home to the Z machine, the most powerful and efficient laboratory radiation source in the world, designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure.
Besides the stalwarts of Kirtland and Sandia, an increasing number of established and emerging technology companies are located in and around Albuquerque. Intel has a major manufacturing site in Rio Rancho, just outside Albuquerque. Since opening in 1980, Intel has produced cutting-edge semiconductor products such as flash memory chips and microprocessors in some of the most advanced microprocessor fabrication facilities in the world.
