Anders Jensen, Govt Director of EuroHPC JU, explains how the European Excessive Efficiency Computing Joint Endeavor helps speed up innovation excessive efficiency computing throughout Europe.
Excessive efficiency computing (HPC) is on the coronary heart of Europe’s digital transformation, driving innovation, scientific discovery, and industrial competitiveness. Utilizing supercomputers and laptop clusters to resolve superior computational issues, HPC functions embody analysis, science, design, simulation, and enterprise intelligence.
Europe’s HPC panorama is pushed by the European Excessive Efficiency Computing Joint Endeavor (EuroHPC JU) – a joint initiative between the EU, European nations, and personal companions to develop a world-class supercomputing ecosystem in Europe. Established in 2018, EuroHPC JU goals to enhance the standard of lifetime of European residents, advance science, enhance industrial competitiveness, and guarantee Europe’s technological autonomy.
The Innovation Platform spoke with Anders Jensen, Govt Director of EuroHPC JU, to study extra about the important thing focuses of EuroHPC JU at current and the main milestones it has seen since its launch.
How would you describe the present state of Europe’s high-performance computing panorama and what are the hopes for its future?
Very positively. Just a little over a decade in the past, Europe was barely on the worldwide HPC map. At the moment, Europe is on the very high. European supercomputers persistently safe a number of spots among the many world’s ten strongest programs within the Top500 ranking. A shift that appeared unthinkable not way back.
This September, Europe additionally reached a significant milestone as JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, was formally inaugurated in Jülich, Germany. Europe isn’t stopping there. A second exascale system, Alice Recoque, is already being deployed in France and several other new mid-range supercomputers may also be coming on-line in Greece, Sweden, Hungary, and Eire.
In parallel, 19 AI Factories are being deployed to present European SMEs and startups entry to cutting-edge synthetic intelligence (AI) infrastructure. On high of that, Europe can be pioneering one thing distinctive: integrating quantum computing technologies directly with supercomputers, creating hybrid programs that might unlock completely new potentialities.
All of those tendencies have been made attainable by environment friendly collaboration and the pooling of EuroHPC Joint Endeavor sources with nationwide ones. It’s a mannequin that works, and one which continues to develop, with extra nations and organisations becoming a member of yearly, strengthening the EuroHPC JU collective dedication to staying on the forefront of supercomputing innovation.
So, in a nutshell: Europe’s HPC future is vivid because it continues to construct a lot wanted compute infrastructure and companies throughout Europe.
What are the principle boundaries going through the HPC sector? How can these be overcome?
The HPC sector in Europe faces two basic boundaries: fragmentation and accessibility.
Till just lately, European nations operated at vastly totally different ranges of HPC functionality and experience. This fragmentation prevented Europe from competing successfully on the worldwide stage.
By way of the EuroHPC Joint Endeavor, Europe is now progressively constructing a cohesive ecosystem, with a community of Centres of Excellence (CoEs) and Nationwide Competency Centres (NCCs) that pool experience and sources, fostering a extra constant abilities base and real cross-border collaboration.
HPC holds huge potential for innovation throughout numerous sectors, from automotive design to prescription drugs to local weather analysis. But, accessing this useful resource has historically required specialised experience and vital funding, placing it out of attain for a lot of who may gain advantage most: researchers at smaller establishments, startups, SMEs, and public sector organisations.
The community of Competency Centres (EuroCC) and CoEs, funded by EuroHPC JU, is actively reaching out to those non-traditional customers, serving to them perceive how HPC can remedy their particular challenges. One other EuroHPC JU-funded initiative, FF+, facilitates SMEs entry to HPC and AI supercomputing sources by offering monetary assist, skilled technical steering, and enterprise growth help.
Constructing on the HPC expertise, the JU can be responding to the demand for extra compute linked to the unreal intelligence revolution. 19 AI Factories are actually being deployed, together with 13 newly chosen AI Manufacturing unit Antennas to reply to this new problem. European AI startups, SMEs, and researchers might be given infrastructure entry, but additionally complete assist: coaching, technical experience, and assist getting ready information for AI functions.
Making entry seamless is essential. That’s the reason EuroHPC JU is about to launch its Federation platform: a single entry level to all European HPC, AI, and quantum computing sources. As a substitute of navigating totally different programs and utility processes, customers will quickly have one unified gateway. In parallel, coaching and assist companies are being consolidated by the just lately launched HPC in Europe Portal, making it simpler than ever to search out steering and help.
By combining infrastructure funding with energetic outreach, coaching, and simplified entry, we’re reworking HPC from an unique useful resource right into a sensible instrument for innovation throughout Europe.
Are you able to clarify extra in regards to the EuroHPC JU and its major aims?
Established in 2018, the EuroHPC Joint Endeavor is a authorized and funding entity that swimming pools sources from the European Union and collaborating nations with the mission to make Europe a world chief in supercomputing. However it’s not nearly constructing machines, it’s about becoming a member of forces to construct a complete sovereign ecosystem that strengthens Europe’s digital autonomy.
To this point, the EuroHPC JU has already procured 11 supercomputers, distributed throughout Europe, equipping the continent with a cutting-edge supercomputing infrastructure. Irrespective of the place they’re in Europe, scientists, public sector customers, and trade can entry these supercomputers freed from cost by the EuroHPC Access Calls. This entry helps scientific development and the event of a variety of functions with industrial, scientific, and societal relevance.
The EuroHPC JU can be deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure, integrating various European quantum computing applied sciences with supercomputers. So far, the EuroHPC JU has procured six quantum computer systems and co-funded two extra by the HPCQS challenge – all of them positioned in Europe and from European firms with two extra programs on the way in which. The deployment of those quantum computer systems throughout Europe goals to supply the widest attainable number of European quantum computing platforms and hybrid classical-quantum architectures, together with analogue quantum simulators based mostly on impartial atoms, trapped ions, superconducting circuits, and photonics to adiabatic programs, enabling the execution of annealing routines. This method positions Europe on the forefront of this rising subject whereas offering European end-users with entry to various and complementary quantum applied sciences.
At present, the EuroHPC JU can be overseeing the implementation of 19 AI factories (AIF) complemented by 13 AI Factory Antennas to supply free, customised assist to SMEs and startups.
Lastly, the EuroHPC JU additionally funds research and innovation projects to develop a full European supercomputing provide chain, from processors and software program to functions to be run on these supercomputers and know-how to develop robust European HPC experience.
What are the important thing methods during which EuroHPC JU helps to speed up Europe’s HPC providing?
EuroHPC JU is accelerating Europe’s HPC capabilities on a number of fronts, from entry and expertise growth to sustainability and abilities.
By providing free entry to modern HPC, AI, and quantum computing programs to European scientists, public sector customers, and trade, no matter their location, the EuroHPC JU is widening the usage of HPC. In simply 5 years, the EuroHPC JU has supported over 2,300 initiatives, allocating greater than 145 million computing hours to analysis spanning local weather science, drug discovery, engineering to call a couple of.
A key EuroHPC JU mission is to strengthen Europe’s technological independence. To this point, 58 research projects have acquired EuroHPC grants to develop Europe’s personal supercomputing applied sciences. Notable examples embody the European Processor Initiative (EPI), which is producing SiPearl’s Rhea, the world’s first energy-efficient HPC microprocessor designed in Europe, and the DARE project, which is growing processors and accelerators based mostly on RISC-V applied sciences for AI workloads. Different initiatives, akin to Net4EXA, concentrate on next-generation interconnect applied sciences – a important element for each HPC and AI programs.
By way of its analysis and innovation technique, EuroHPC JU can be investing closely in abilities growth, guaranteeing that Europe has the experience to harness its computing energy. The flagship EUMaster4HPC programme brings collectively high European universities, supercomputing centres, and trade companions to coach the following era of HPC professionals. It combines tutorial excellence with hands-on expertise at HPC websites, getting ready college students to sort out complicated scientific and industrial challenges.
Sustainability is one other pillar of EuroHPC JU technique. From energy-efficient information centre design to optimised software program and accountable person practices, environmental issues are built-in at each stage. All EuroHPC internet hosting entities should, as an example, meet strict energy-efficiency requirements, together with clear reporting of their energy utilization effectiveness (PUE) ratio. Each EuroHPC supercomputer makes use of liquid-cooling programs, that are way more environment friendly than air-cooling, and in a number of circumstances the waste warmth is repurposed for heating in adjoining native communities.
Furthermore, sustainable power sources are used to energy EuroHPC programs, for instance: LUMI (Finland) runs completely on carbon-free hydroelectric energy; MareNostrum 5 (Spain) operates on 100% renewable power; and MeluXina (Luxembourg) is powered by a cogeneration plant utilizing waste wooden.
Past {hardware}, EuroHPC JU additionally promotes power consciousness amongst customers, who obtain suggestions on their power consumption to encourage extra environment friendly simulation practices. On the software program aspect, devoted calls assist low-power element design and energy-optimised functions to make sure effectivity throughout your complete HPC ecosystem.
What have been your key achievements on this subject during the last 12 months?
The previous yr has been transformative for the EuroHPC Joint Endeavor. Our most vital accomplishment has been the fast enlargement of Europe’s AI infrastructure by the AI Factories initiative.
Following the programme’s official launch by way of a regulatory modification in summer time 2024, we’ve constructed exceptional momentum. In December 2024, we selected seven countries to host Europe’s first AI Factories: Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Sweden. This was adopted in March 2025 by six additional facilities in Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia. Most just lately, in October 2025, we chosen six more AI Factories and 13 complementary AI Factory Antennas, creating an interconnected community of 32 state-of-the-art hubs throughout Europe.
These AI Factories function one-stop retailers, democratising entry to AI-optimised supercomputing for startups, SMEs, and researchers. They empower customers to develop, check, and scale superior AI fashions and functions, together with general-purpose AI fashions and rising options, that require vital computing energy.
Past AI, we’ve made decisive advances in quantum computing. Over the previous yr, we inaugurated our first two quantum computer systems: PIAST-Q in Poznań, Poland and VLQ in Ostrava, Czechia. Whereas ultimate calibration continues, early entry has already been made out there to researchers, trade professionals, and public sector innovators beginning to discover hybrid quantum-classical computing functions in quantum chemistry, optimisation and machine studying. This represents a significant leap in direction of quantum-powered analysis and innovation in Europe.
Lastly, we’ve secured the long run connectivity of our infrastructure by signing a contract with GÉANT to ship ultra-high bandwidth, safe, pan-European interconnect companies with terabit-per-second transmission capabilities for our whole supercomputing ecosystem.
All of this has been achieved whereas persevering with our ‘conventional’ actions, deploying new supercomputers throughout Europe, allocating entry time to researchers, overseeing grants allocation to analysis and innovation initiatives, guaranteeing that EuroHPC JU stays on the forefront of Europe’s technological sovereignty and scientific excellence.
Please notice, this text may also seem within the twenty fourth version of our quarterly publication.
