The French company Eviden, part of Atos, and German modular supercomputing company ParTec have announced that they have won the contract for the manufacturing of Europe’s first exascale supercomputerwithin the framework of the Jupiter Project.
This project has financing of 500 million euros, of which 273 million will be allocated to the construction of the equipment. Half of the project amount will be provided by EuropHPC, and the other half by the German Federal Ministry of Education. The supercomputer will have SiPearl Rhea processors, with ARM architecture, and Nvidia accelerator technology. It will be installed at the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany. It will occupy a space equivalent to four tennis courts, and will need around 260 kilometers of cables.
The Jupiter system will be the first in Europe with computing power capable of exceeding one trillion calculations per second. Its role will be to support the development of high-precision models of complex systems, which could help solve problems and questions related to areas such as climate change, pandemics or fusion energy. In addition, it will allow the intensive use of Artificial Intelligence and the analysis of enormous amounts of data.
The EuropeHPC consortium, dedicated to high-performance computing, announced the Jupiter project last year, and has now indicated that the supercomputer will begin construction at the beginning of next year 2024.
Emmanuel Le Roux, Vice President of Atos and Head of HPC, AI and Quantum Computing at Evidenhas highlighted that «Delivering Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, based on our BullSequana XH3000, is a source of real pride for our teams. Since we have offered supercomputing technologies, we have been supporting European countries on their journey towards economic and industrial sovereignty. The European scientific community will now benefit from a leading machine made in Europe to address scientific challenges and stimulate innovation«.
As to Philippe Notton, CEO and founder of SiPearlmanufacturer of the Rhea1 chip, has highlighted that the presence of its supercomputing processor in the supercomputer «validates EuropHPC’s vision of creating the European Process Initiative group, which SiPearl incubated«. Also that they hope to work with the companies and centers in charge of the construction and commissioning of the supercomputer and that together they will contribute «to European technological sovereignty, while reducing the carbon footprint of supercomputing and AI«.
Bernhard Frohwitter, CEO of ParTec AGhas highlighted that «The Dynamic Modular System Architecture (dMSA) approach developed under the leadership of the Jülich Supercomputing Center and ParTec with the participation of several European partners, and patented by ParTec, is a new system designed in high-performance computing, and represents a contribution crucial to delivering the speed and efficiency needed for sophisticated AI algorithms. The contract won by ParTecAG and its long-time partner Eviden not only underlines the competitiveness and performance of German and European suppliers in the construction of supercomputers, but is also a decisive step towards Europe’s technological sovereignty.«.
The EuroHPC consortium is planning the construction of a second exascale supercomputer, which will be in France and will come into operation at the end of 2025. Its project was announced last June, and will be located at the facilities of the Jules Verne Consortium.
