Europe reaches exascale supercomputing with ‘JUPITER‘
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Europe has officially entered the exascale era with the inauguration of JUPITER, its first supercomputer capable of more than one quintillion operations per second. The system, unveiled at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany by Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, ranks as Europe’s most powerful supercomputer and the fourth fastest worldwide.
For eeNews Europe readers, JUPITER is a key milestone not only in high-performance computing but also in energy-efficient design and AI infrastructure, areas that directly impact research, industry, and innovation across the continent.
Breaking the exascale barrier
The new system surpasses the symbolic threshold of one exaflop – equivalent to the combined computing power of about one million modern smartphones. With that capability, researchers can run high-resolution climate and weather models, improving predictions of extreme events such as floods, storms, and heatwaves.
JUPITER has also claimed the top spot on the Green500 ranking as the world’s most energy-efficient supercomputer module. Running entirely on renewable energy, it integrates advanced cooling systems and energy reuse technologies, setting a benchmark for sustainable computing.
“With Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, we are opening a new chapter for science, AI and innovation. JUPITER strengthens Europe’s digital sovereignty, accelerates discovery, and ensures that the most powerful and sustainable computing resources are available to our researchers, innovators, and industries,” said Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation.
Fueling AI development
Beyond scientific research, JUPITER is poised to play a central role in Europe’s artificial intelligence ambitions. Its compute power will support the upcoming Joint AI Factory (JAIF), announced earlier this year, which will be used to train large language models and other generative AI technologies.
The EU and Germany have channelled their €500 million joint investment through the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, supporting a broader plan to build a network of AI Gigafactories across Europe. These large-scale, energy-efficient hubs will serve as dedicated environments for training and deploying frontier AI models with hundreds of trillions of parameters.
EuroHPC has already approved 13 AI Factory projects and received 76 expressions of interest for AI Gigafactories from 16 Member States. These initiatives bring computing power, data, and talent under one roof, strengthening Europe’s position in the global AI race.
A digital sovereignty milestone
For policymakers, researchers, and the tech industry, JUPITER shows a technological leap and a political statement: Europe commits to staying competitive in high-performance computing and AI. With unmatched computing power, renewable energy operation, and a central role in future AI infrastructure, JUPITER signals that Europe’s exascale journey has just begun. https://ec.europa.eu/
Image: © Copyright Barcelona Supercomputing Center – 2024
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