How JHC is integrating HPC, AI, and quantum

The Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) is advancing European high-performance computing by evolving cutting-edge methods akin to JUPITER, and integrating AI in addition to quantum applied sciences to deal with advanced scientific, societal, and industrial challenges.

On the coronary heart of Europe’s scientific computing panorama, the Jülich Supercomputing Centre at Forschungszentrum Jülich (Jülich, North Rhine-Westphalia) has grown from a nationwide computational science hub within the Nineteen Eighties into a worldwide powerhouse of high-performance computing (HPC), synthetic intelligence (AI), and rising quantum applied sciences. With an extended legacy of innovation, sturdy collaborations throughout academia and business, and a agency dedication to advancing Europe’s digital sovereignty, JSC is shaping the following period of HPC-enabled scientific discovery.

Constructing Europe’s HPC future

JSC’s journey started with early adoption of large-scale computing for scientific analysis, serving to place Germany among the many pioneers of computational science. Over a long time, JSC cultivated an ecosystem that blends nationwide analysis priorities with European collaborations, educational partnerships, and industrial use circumstances – from local weather science and supplies modelling to power methods and life sciences.

A trademark of JSC’s strategy has been its means to anticipate and adapt to main shifts in computational science. Lengthy earlier than ‘AI’ dominated tech headlines, JSC’s methods – designed for large parallelism and modern {hardware} – enabled large-scale machine studying analysis and data-intensive simulations, fostering a tradition of innovation that bridged HPC and AI wants.

JUWELS: A brand new blueprint for modular supercomputing

A landmark step on this evolution was the JUWELS supercomputer. Constructed as a modular HPC platform, JUWELS set excessive marks for efficiency, flexibility, and effectivity, turning into certainly one of Europe’s foremost HPC methods. Its Booster module, specifically, paired GPU accelerators with conventional CPU sources, enabling extremely scalable simulations for local weather analysis, molecular dynamics, and particle physics, amongst others – and making JUWELS one of many first methods in Europe to help large-scale AI augmented workflows successfully. These capabilities helped place JUWELS as a bridge between classical HPC and the rising calls for of AI-driven computation.

JUPITER: Europe’s first exascale supercomputer

The centrepiece of JSC’s present technique is JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer – a system that’s redefining scientific computing throughout the continent. Commissioned in 2024 and inaugurated with nice media consideration in 2025, JUPITER exceeds 1 ExaFLOP/s of sustained efficiency, making it not solely Europe’s quickest supercomputer but in addition one of the crucial power environment friendly in its class. Its heterogeneous structure options superchips that tightly combine CPU cores with GPU accelerators, enabling monumental versatility throughout workloads – from classical simulations to cutting-edge AI analysis.

“With JUPITER, now we have reached a milestone in computing historical past,” mentioned Professor Thomas Lippert, one of many two administrators of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. “However what actually issues is what it allows: a brand new period the place high-performance computing turns into an agile platform for innovation in science and AI, letting researchers deal with questions that had been beforehand out of attain.”

JUPITER’s fusion of energy, scalability, and flexibility positions it as a key engine for next-generation science – advancing fields as various as local weather modelling, supplies design, and biomedical analysis.

The JUPITER AI Manufacturing facility: Exascale for all

One in every of JSC’s most strategic improvements is the JUPITER AI Manufacturing facility (JAIF) – an infrastructure layer that leverages JUPITER’s exascale capabilities to make them extensively accessible. JAIF offers universities, analysis establishments, start-ups, SMEs, and business companions with a collaborative platform to develop, scale, and deploy AI purposes.

This strategy displays JSC’s long-standing dedication to open and collaborative HPC. By JAIF, customers can experiment with coaching and tuning massive AI fashions, run data-intensive analytics, and combine exascale computing into analysis and industrial workflows. By offering coaching and neighborhood help, JAIF helps foster a vibrant ecosystem that connects scientific discovery with sensible innovation, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness in AI and data-driven analysis.

Quantum computing at JSC: JUNIQ and hybrid computing

Whereas HPC stays JSC’s core mission, the JSC is actively increasing into quantum applied sciences. Central to this effort is JUNIQ – a multi-platform quantum computing infrastructure that brings collectively various {hardware} and software program instruments in addition to person help for science and business.

In late 2024, JSC added a 100-qubit quantum laptop from Pasqal, now named JADE, to its quantum portfolio – a key milestone for JUNIQ and for hybrid classical quantum exploration. This method was formally inaugurated in 2025 and strengthens JSC’s means to discover hybrid HPC quantum purposes which will speed up explicit lessons of issues, akin to optimisation and supplies discovery.

“Quantum computing at JSC isn’t a separate monitor,” mentioned Professor Dr Kristel Michielsen, Director of the JSC and Head of JUNIQ. “We’re exploring the way it enhances HPC. JUNIQ and methods like JADE permit us to experiment with hybrid approaches that may dramatically speed up scientific discovery and open new computational pathways.”

By situating quantum methods alongside exascale infrastructure, JSC offers researchers with a continuum of computing paradigms – classical, AI-enhanced, and quantum – inside a single built-in platform.

Milestones and international collaboration

JSC’s affect reaches far past its personal machines. Its integration into European and worldwide consortia – together with the European Excessive Efficiency Computing Joint Enterprise (EuroHPC JU) – ensures German and European researchers have entry to world-class sources, whereas contributing experience in scalable software program frameworks, HPC architectures, and interdisciplinary analysis. By these collaborations, JSC helps outline the way forward for computational science for Europe and the world.

Connecting HPC, AI, and quantum to deal with grand challenges

As computational science evolves, JSC’s mission continues to be formidable and future-oriented. The seamless integration of HPC, AI, and quantum applied sciences represents not only a technological frontier however a strategic one: an infrastructure ecosystem able to addressing grand challenges – from local weather change, sustainable power, and superior supplies to public well being and past.

JSC’s imaginative and prescient extends previous standalone methods to built-in computational ecosystems: hybrid HPC-quantum workflows, shared platforms such because the JUPITER AI Manufacturing facility, and a cross-sector collaborative neighborhood that spans borders and disciplines. HPC stays on the coronary heart of this imaginative and prescient, with exascale computing – exemplified by Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, JUPITER – enabling science at scale, accelerating innovation, and charting new horizons in computational discovery. By initiatives that deliver quantum sources and classical supercomputing nearer collectively, researchers can discover hybrid approaches to deal with advanced issues and broaden the attain of computational science – simply as JSC got down to do from the very starting.

Please notice, this text will even seem within the twenty fifth version of our quarterly publication.