European Jupiter supercomputer surpasses exascale milestone during its launch ceremony

Europe has taken a significant step forward in digital sovereignty with the inauguration of Jupiter, the continent's first exascale supercomputer. Located at the Jülich Supercomputing Center near Köln, Germany, Jupiter promises to accelerate discovery, provide sustainable computing resources for researchers, innovators, and industries, and cement Europe's position in the global race for supercomputing dominance.

The Jupiter system, a collaboration between the German company ParTec (now part of Eviden), the French IT firm Atos, Nvidia, the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, has surpassed the exascale threshold of one quintillion (1018) operations per second. This makes it Europe's most powerful computer system and the worldwide fourth fastest.

The system is divided into two main modules: the Cluster Module and the Booster module. The Cluster Module, targeting CPU-based workflows, will be based on the Rhea1 processor from SiPearl. On the other hand, the Booster module, intended for handling large-scale simulations and AI training, comprises approximately 6000 compute nodes, each featuring four of Nvidia's GH200 Grace Hopper superchips. The Booster module is interconnected using Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking gear from the GPU-flinger.

The Cluster Module is expected to feature two Rhea1 processors per compute node and comprise a total of 1,300 nodes. The Booster module, inaugurated recently, is housed inside a modular datacenter consisting of approximately 50 container modules.

The total cost for Jupiter and operating it over six years is estimated to amount to €500 million ($587 million), with the European supercomputing initiative, EuroHPC JU, contributing half of the cost. The rest is covered by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW NRW).

Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, stated that Jupiter opens a new chapter for science, AI, and innovation. The UK has also reinstated plans for an exascale supercomputer, but it is no longer being referred to as an exascale cluster. The UK's planned supercomputer will be based at Edinburgh University.

The US achieved exascale level with the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory three years ago, followed by Argonne National Laboratory's Aurora supercomputer and Lawrence Livermore National Lab's El Capitan system last year. China is also believed to have exascale systems. The race for supercomputing dominance is heating up, and Europe is making its mark with the inauguration of Jupiter.