Europe Enters the Exascale Age with New Supercomputer Inaugurated in Jülich
Europe has joined the world’s elite club in supercomputing: JUPITER, the first supercomputer to surpass exaflops of computing power in Europe, will soon be supporting scientific research and the use of AI. At the ceremonial inauguration event, Tamás Máray, Deputy Head of the Laboratory of Parallel and Distributed Systems at HUN-REN SZTAKI, and a member of the EuroHPC Steering Committee, represented the related domestic initiatives.
In September, the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) in Germany symbolically put into operation Europe's most powerful supercomputer, JUPITER, which ranks 4th in the world. The ultimate computing power of the entire system will reach 1 exaflops (FP64), to be announced in the latest TOP500 list in November 2025. The machine was designed jointly by JSC specialists and French-based Bull engineers, and the "soul" of the machine is the Nvidia GraceHopper superchip. The extraordinary performance is delivered by nearly 2 million ARM architecture processor cores and 24,000 H100 GPUs, and data storage is provided by 300 PB of storage (of which 29 PB is flash).
The supercomputer is modular in design, has a warm water cooling system, and with an electrical power requirement of “only” 17 MW, it is currently considered the most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world. The investment is financed by the German federal government, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the EuroHPC JU. The primary purpose of the supercomputer is to serve scientific research, and in particular, the development and support of artificial intelligence solutions. The supercomputer was personally handed over by German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in the presence of numerous ministers, EU Commissioners and high-ranking decision-makers. Tamás Máray, senior research fellow and Deputy Head of the Laboratory of the Parallel and Distributed Systems at HUN-REN SZTAKI, attended the handover ceremony as the Hungarian guest.
In order to explore the possibilities of national use, a Hungarian delegation visited Jülich during the summer, where the Government Commissioner for Artificial Intelligence, the CEO of HUN-REN, and the Deputy Director of HUN-REN SZTAKI held successful negotiations. As a result of the consultations, Hungary submitted its application to the European Union AI Factory Antenna call with the support of the Jülich Supercomputing Center. The large-scale, strategically important application creates an opportunity for HUN-REN SZTAKI to expand its existing capabilities and experiences in the fields of artificial intelligence, IT research infrastructures, and technology transfer, making them widely useful for domestic SMEs, startups, research groups, and the public sector.
