Germany has taken a significant technological leap with the ceremonial inauguration of the JUPITER supercomputer at the Jülich Research Centre on September 5, 2025. This momentous occasion, attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and North Rhine-Westphalia's state leader Hendrik Wüst, marks Europe's entry into the exascale computing era. JUPITER, now the fourth fastest supercomputer globally, is capable of performing over a quintillion (10^18) floating-point operations per second, a computational power equivalent to that of five million modern laptops.
Chancellor Merz underscored JUPITER's pivotal role in bolstering Europe's competitive standing against global AI leaders, the United States and China. He stated, "We in Germany, and we in Europe, have every opportunity to catch up and then keep pace," highlighting the machine as a "historic European pioneering project." European Commissioner for Start-ups, Research, and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva, echoed this sentiment, proclaiming it a "historic milestone" that "opens a new chapter for science, AI and innovation," thereby strengthening Europe's digital sovereignty.
Built on NVIDIA's Grace Hopper platform and featuring Eviden's BullSequana XH3000 liquid-cooled architecture, JUPITER is engineered for advanced artificial intelligence tasks, expected to achieve AI performance of up to 90 exaflops. This immense processing capability will dramatically accelerate simulations and the training of complex AI models across various scientific and industrial domains. The collaboration between Forschungszentrum Jülich, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, NVIDIA, Eviden, and ParTec has culminated in a system that not only pushes computational boundaries but also sets new benchmarks for sustainability.
In an era where data centers are increasingly significant energy consumers, JUPITER stands out for its remarkable energy efficiency. The system operates entirely on renewable energy and has achieved the top ranking on the Green500 list, with its initial development module, JEDI, demonstrating an efficiency of 72 billion floating-point operations per watt. Further enhancing its eco-friendly design, JUPITER is equipped with a system to reuse its generated heat for campus heating, a crucial innovation given that data centers currently account for approximately 4% of Germany's electricity consumption.
JUPITER's deployment is intrinsically linked to Germany's ambitious national AI strategy, which aims for AI to contribute 10% of the country's GDP by 2030. As a cornerstone of this strategy, JUPITER will provide the essential high-performance computing infrastructure needed for large-scale AI processing and the development of sophisticated AI models, including those for generative AI and climate research. Its capabilities will empower researchers to conduct highly detailed climate and weather simulations, advance drug discovery, explore neuroscience, and accelerate quantum simulation research.
As Europe's most powerful supercomputer and a testament to international collaboration, JUPITER represents a significant stride forward. It is poised to catalyze breakthroughs, attract talent, and foster innovation, ensuring Europe remains at the forefront of technological advancement and scientific exploration.