A new method of solution to the local spin density approximation to the electronic Schr\"{o}dinger equation is presented. The method is based on an efficient, parallel, adaptive multigrid eigenvalue solver. It is shown that adaptivity is both necessary and sufficient to accurately solve the eigenvalue problem near the singularities at the atomic centers. While preliminary, these results suggest that direct real space methods may provide a much needed method for efficiently computing the forces in complex materials.

Specialized computational chemistry packages have permanently reshaped the landscape of chemical and materials science by providing tools to support and guide experimental efforts and for the prediction of atomistic and electronic properties. In this regard, electronic structure packages have played a special role by using first-principle-driven methodologies to model complex chemical and materials processes. Over the past few decades, the rapid development of computing technologies and the tremendous increase in computational power have offered a unique chance to study complex transformations using sophisticated and predictive many-body techniques that describe correlated behavior of electrons in molecular and condensed phase systems at different levels of theory. In enabling these simulations, novel parallel algorithms have been able to take advantage of computational resources to address the polynomial scaling of electronic structure methods. In this paper, we briefly review the NWChem computational chemistry suite, including its history, design principles, parallel tools, current capabilities, outreach, and outlook.