The Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany will become a partner in the German Gauss Centre (GCS) for Supercomputing and will operate the first next-generation European supercomputer. This has been decided by EuroHPC JU, the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking. The exascale computer is called “JUPITER”, short for “Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research”. It is expected to break the barrier of one trillion calculations per second, and is to be installed in a specially designed building in 2023.
The exascale computer should help to solve important and urgent scientific questions regarding, for example, climate change, how to combat pandemics, and sustainable energy production, while also enabling the intensive use of artificial intelligence and the analysis of large data volumes.
The overall costs for the system amount to 500 million euros. 250 million euros is covered by EuroHPC JU and a further 250 million euros in equal parts by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW NRW).
The supercomputer will be more powerful than five million modern notebooks or PCs. Like the current Jülich top computer JUWELS, JUPITER will be based on a dynamic modular supercomputer architecture developed by Forschungszentrum Jülich together with European and international partners in the European DEEP research projects.
In a modular supercomputer, different computing modules are coupled together. This makes it possible to distribute program parts of complex simulations over several modules so that the different hardware properties in each case can be optimally exploited. Due to its design, the system is also well prepared to integrate future technologies such as quantum computing modules or neuromorphic modules that replicate the way the brain works.
- Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany
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