DBIS

JUPITER: Europe’s First Exascale Supercomputer

The first European exascale supercomputer, “Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research” (JUPITER), is located on the campus of the Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) in North Rhine-Westphalia. Developed by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) in collaboration with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and procured by EuroHPC, the system marks a technological and scientific milestone for Europe: it provides computing capacities previously only available in the US and China and strengthens Europe’s digital and scientific sovereignty.

JUPITER is the first European supercomputer to reach the mark of one trillion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, computing operations per second in double floating point precision (FP64), 1 exaFLOP/s. Its potential computing power with the lower precision (FP8) commonly used for AI workloads is more than 40 exaFLOP/s.

JUPITER currently ranks fourth on the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers, which was presented in June 2025 at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) in Hamburg. At the same time, JUPITER is the most energy-efficient system among the top 5 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

About the financing of JUPITER

Half of JUPITER’s funding comes from the European supercomputing initiative EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), with an additional quarter each from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR, formerly BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW NRW) via the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS).

About JAIF

JAIF is one of 19 AI factories set up by the European Commission to bridge the gap between AI research and real-world application by providing researchers in the European Union, industry (start-ups, SMEs, and large companies), and the public sector with access to AI infrastructure.

JAIF combines Europe’s most powerful computing resources with unique AI expertise, domain-specific solutions, a novel, state-of-the-art inference infrastructure, and outstanding talent to solve real-world problems in the private sector, academia, and beyond.

Artificial intelligence in global competition – about AI factories in the EU

To keep pace with global technological developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), for example in the US or China, the European Commission developed the “AI Continent Action Plan” in April 2025, which focuses on the development of trustworthy AI technologies that respect European values, cultures, and regulations.

The plan includes the expansion of existing and the establishment of new large-scale AI data and computing infrastructures, as well as access to high-quality data, the development and strengthening of AI capabilities and talent, the development and introduction of algorithms, and the implementation of EU AI legislation. AI factories such as JAIF (and later AI giga factories) will provide the necessary infrastructure and ecosystems to achieve the EU’s ambitious goals of becoming a global leader in AI.

Further information on AI factories can be found on the European Commission’s website:
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factories

Funding and EU’s AI Strategy

All AI factories are funded as part of the “AI Continent Action Plan” by the European Commission and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU), as well as the respective member states. JAIF is financed with €25 million from the EuroHPC JU and the German federal government as well as the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, while the JARVIS interference system is financed with €30 million from the German federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.