NVIDIA’s Grace Hopper platform powers JUPITER, Europe’s fastest supercomputer, offering over twice the speed of the next-fastest system. With nearly 24,000 NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips, it achieves exascale performance, driving breakthroughs in AI, climate modelling, quantum research, and drug discovery. JUPITER’s energy efficiency and performance make it a vital tool for European scientific advancement.
NVIDIA has announced that the JUPITER supercomputer, equipped with the NVIDIA Grace Hopper™ platform, is now the fastest supercomputer in Europe. This groundbreaking system delivers more than a twofold speedup for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, positioning it as a leader in the global supercomputing race.
JUPITER is poised to become Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, capable of executing 1 quintillion FP64 operations per second, accelerating scientific research and technological advancements.
Revolutionising European scientific discovery
JUPITER, hosted at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre in Germany, marks a significant leap forward in European computing capabilities. It serves as a catalyst for advancements across a range of critical scientific fields, including climate modelling, quantum research, structural biology, computational engineering, and astrophysics. This powerful system provides researchers across Europe with the computational resources to tackle complex, large-scale problems and achieve breakthrough discoveries.
“AI will supercharge scientific discovery and industrial innovation,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “In partnership with Jülich and Eviden, we’re building Europe’s most advanced AI supercomputer to enable leading researchers, industries, and institutions to expand human knowledge, accelerate breakthroughs, and drive national advancement.”
Technological specifications and energy efficiency
JUPITER’s architecture is comprised of nearly 24,000 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, interconnected using the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform. This setup enables the supercomputer to achieve an estimated performance of over 90 exaflops of AI processing power. Notably, JUPITER is one of the most energy-efficient systems globally, delivering 60 gigaflops per watt, ensuring sustainable operation at such unprecedented speeds.
JUPITER’s hardware is based on the BullSequana XH3000 liquid-cooled architecture from Eviden, contributing to its outstanding performance and energy efficiency.
Empowering European research across multiple disciplines
JUPITER’s capabilities are designed to address challenges in various scientific domains:
- Climate and Weather Modelling: JUPITER’s power enables high-resolution, real-time environmental simulations, contributing to global initiatives such as the Earth Virtualization Engines project. This project aims to create a digital twin of the Earth to enhance climate change research and mitigation strategies.
- Quantum Computing: The supercomputer advances quantum algorithm and hardware development with tools like NVIDIA’s CUDA-Q™ platform and cuQuantum software development kit, supporting the integration of quantum and high-performance computing (HPC) technologies.
- Computer-Aided Engineering: JUPITER is transforming product design and manufacturing through AI-driven simulation, digital twin technologies, and the NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo™ framework.
- Drug Discovery: JUPITER accelerates drug development by streamlining the deployment of AI models for pharmaceutical research, using NVIDIA’s BioNeMo™ platform to reduce time to insight in biomolecular science.
JUPITER’s role in quantum and HPC innovation
One of JUPITER’s most exciting features is its potential to drive the development of quantum computing algorithms and hardware. As Kristel Michielsen, co-director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, highlighted: “Hybrid quantum HPC-computation will profit from powerful tools such as the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform and the NVIDIA cuQuantum software development kit.”
JUPITER’s contribution to quantum computing research is expected to have a transformative impact on future quantum technologies, helping to address challenges that currently hinder the development of large-scale, real-world quantum systems.
A collaborative achievement in European leadership
JUPITER’s creation and delivery are the result of a collaborative effort involving NVIDIA, Jülich, and Eviden. As Emmanuel Le Roux, senior vice president and global head of advanced computing at Eviden, pointed out, “JUPITER’s launch is not just an extraordinary technical success, delivering an exascale machine and Jülich’s modular data center in less than nine months, it marks a pivotal moment for European high-performance computing.”
The system is also notable for its integration of NVIDIA’s complete software stack, which is optimised to ensure maximum performance. This end-to-end software architecture is integral to JUPITER’s ability to tackle the most demanding computational tasks across scientific and industrial sectors.
JUPITER’s contribution to global research
Not only does JUPITER push the boundaries of computing within Europe, but it also positions European researchers to make a significant global impact. JUPITER is ranked among the top five supercomputers in the world according to the TOP500 list, solidifying its status as a leader in the supercomputing community.
Thomas Lippert, co-director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, summarised the significance of JUPITER, saying: “Powered by NVIDIA’s accelerated computing and AI platforms, JUPITER is advancing the frontier of foundation model training and high-performance simulation, enabling researchers across Europe to tackle challenges of unprecedented complexity.”
Access and future directions
JUPITER is now available for European researchers to apply for access, allowing them to leverage its capabilities to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. As European research organisations continue to harness the power of JUPITER, the system will serve as a critical enabler of future scientific breakthroughs.
In conclusion, JUPITER represents the future of high-performance computing in Europe, driving AI, quantum research, and scientific discovery at an unprecedented scale. Its capabilities will play a pivotal role in advancing Europe’s scientific and technological leadership for years to come.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation, founded in 1993, is a global leader in accelerated computing, AI, and graphics processing technologies. Initially known for pioneering the graphics card market, particularly with its GeForce product line, NVIDIA has since expanded its influence across multiple industries, including gaming, professional visualization, data centres, and automotive.
The company’s GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are at the core of its technology, driving innovations in AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing (HPC). NVIDIA’s CUDA programming platform enables developers to harness the full power of GPUs for computational tasks, making it an essential tool in sectors such as scientific research, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles.
In recent years, NVIDIA has made substantial advancements in AI and deep learning. Its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies further solidified its position in the data centre market. Moreover, the company’s collaboration with researchers and industries is pivotal in advancing AI and supercomputing, as seen in its contribution to powering Europe’s JUPITER supercomputer.
With a robust portfolio that includes technologies such as the NVIDIA Grace Hopper platform, Omniverse, and BioNeMo, NVIDIA continues to drive scientific discovery, industrial innovation, and cutting-edge solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems. The company remains at the forefront of technological progress and is shaping the future of computing globally.
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