One exaflop of computing power, yet extremely efficient. That was the goal of Atos company Eviden with JUPITER, the supercomputer that was announced in 2023 and is now breaking through the exascale barrier.
To be clear, one exaflop of computing power means that one billion billion or quintillion calculations per second are possible. JUPITER ranks fourth in the world in the supercomputer rankings. As mentioned, this massive computing power is not the only trademark of this supercomputer in Jülich, Germany. According to the Green500 ranking, JUPITER ranks first in terms of energy efficiency. The so-called Booster partition of Evidens’ computer scores 63 gigaflops per watt, a record in this class of computing power.
How efficient is it?
For Evidens, this claim of efficiency is nothing new. It now holds the top three positions in the Green500 for the fourth time in a row. KAIROS (CALMIP) ranks number one with 73 GFlops per watt, followed by ROMEO (URCA) with 70 GFlops per watt and the Levante GPU extension (DKRZ) with 69 GFlops per watt.
The company says that its energy efficiency is the result of years of focus on that specific goal. Eviden has a patented direct liquid cooling solution, which is now in its fifth generation. The technology cools components directly with liquid instead of air. Software such as Argos also optimizes energy consumption in real time.
The efficiency achieved has practical value in addition to impressive benchmarks. JUPITER forms the core of the JUPITER AI Factory, which will soon offer secure access to AI models for research, start-ups, and industry.
Europe’s first exascale system
Eviden, the Atos Group division responsible for the construction, placed a total of 58 systems in the TOP500 list. JUPITER was developed by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) in collaboration with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking. The modular data center in which the supercomputer runs covers 2,300 square meters.
JUPITER has already enabled more than 100 projects, according to Eviden. For example, the system performed simulations of a universal quantum computer with 50 qubits and modeled the entire ecological system of the Earth with a resolution of one kilometer.
58 Eviden systems in the ranking
In addition to JUPITER, 57 other Eviden-built systems are in the TOP500. The list also includes the Gefion system from the Danish Centre for AI Innovation (DCAI), which was also built by Eviden. JUPITER was recognized earlier this year as Europe’s fastest supercomputer. The system runs entirely on renewable energy.