Europe launches JUPITER, a supercomputer the size of four tennis courts capable of simulating the human brain.

Europe now has its first exascale supercomputer up and running. Called JUPITER , it's installed at the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany, and it's no exaggeration to say it's opening a new era.

This machine, the result of years of work, promises to transform areas as diverse as weather forecasting, biomedical research, and the development of new artificial intelligence .

JUPITER is the most powerful supercomputer on our continent and the fourth in the world.

But size and numbers are only part of the story. What makes JUPITER a milestone is that it is, as we said, the first European system to break the exascale barrier . This means it can perform a quintillion operations per second, a figure as difficult to imagine as it is crucial for science today and tomorrow.

Its inauguration marks a turning point not only in the technological field, but also in European digital sovereignty , placing the continent in the exascale league alongside the United States and China. But what exactly does all this mean? Here's a six-point look at JUPITER.

1.- What is JUPITER?

JUPITER ( Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research ) is the most powerful supercomputer in Europe and the fourth in the world , according to the TOP500 ranking of June 2025. It belongs to the category of exascale systems, which means it can perform one quintillion operations per second .

To put this in perspective: if a person did one calculation per second, it would take over 30 billion years to do the same thing that Jupiter solves in an instant.

The project, funded by the European Union and the German government, cost €500 million and is part of the EuroHPC initiative, which seeks to provide Europe with its own advanced computing infrastructure.

2.- Where is it located?

The supercomputer is located on the Jülich research campus in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The choice is no coincidence: the city already has a long tradition in supercomputing and a network of leading scientific centers.

Its construction has been led by Eviden, the Atos Group's product brand , in collaboration with ParTec and technology partners such as NVIDIA and SiPearl.

In addition, it has been designed with a modular approach, allowing its capabilities to be upgraded and expanded in the future without the need to build a new facility.

3.- How big is it?

JUPITER is so enormous it's hard to imagine. According to official information, it occupies the space equivalent to four tennis courts and is crisscrossed by more than 260 kilometers of high-capacity cabling .

Thanks to that infrastructure, it can move more than 2,000 terabytes per second , which is equivalent to 11,800 full copies of Wikipedia every second .

In addition to its size, it stands out for its architecture: it has 24,000 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper superchips connected via the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand network, and an additional module with European SiPearl Rhea1 processors.

The NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper superchips are like the "brain" of Jupiter. Each one is a chip designed to process massive amounts of information at incredible speeds.

Imagine ordinary computers as cars traveling on a highway. These superchips are like high-speed trains capable of transporting thousands of people at once. They are specifically designed for very heavy-duty tasks, such as training artificial intelligence or running scientific simulations.

What makes them so powerful is that they combine the best of both worlds : the processors, which know how to "organize" work, and the graphics cards, which are excellent at parallel calculations. This allows them to process many calculations at the same time, which is vital for JUPITER to function at that scale.

4.- Why is JUPITER special?

What sets JUPITER apart is not only its power, but also its energy efficiency . To keep the enormous electrical costs of running such an infrastructure under control, a direct liquid cooling system has been developed. This technology reduces consumption and simultaneously allows waste heat to be reused to heat buildings on the Jülich campus itself.

Thanks to this design, JUPITER's JEDI module reached the top spot in the Green500 ranking , which measures the world's most efficient supercomputers.

That is to say, it is not only one of the most powerful, but also one of the most sustainable.

5.- What will it be used for?

JUPITER's usefulness is as broad as it is impressive. In the field of climate and meteorology , it will allow simulation of the atmosphere with unprecedented detail, improving the prediction of extreme events and the analysis of climate change scenarios.

In artificial intelligence , it will accelerate the training of large language models, such as OpenGPT-X , a multilingual European project that aims to compete with systems such as OpenAI's GPT or Google's Gemini.

In biomedicine , its power will allow the simulation of neural networks in the human brain at the level of individual neurons, which could open new avenues for research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. It will also facilitate the creation of digital twins of organs like the heart, a key tool for testing treatments without putting patients at risk.

JUPITER will also be a laboratory for validating quantum algorithms, boosting research into new materials, and accelerating the development of sustainable energy .

6.- Who can benefit from JUPITER?

Although JUPITER is located in Germany, it is not a resource exclusive to that country. It is part of the European Supercomputing Network ( EuroHPC ), which means that any European researcher, university, or company can request access to its computing power.

In practice, this opens the door to a wide variety of projects: from laboratories seeking to simulate the behavior of new molecules to develop drugs, to teams of meteorologists seeking to improve the prediction of extreme storms, or groups of engineers needing to design more resistant and sustainable materials.

In fact, more than 100 national and international projects have already been selected and will be the first to begin working with the supercomputer in the coming weeks.

JUPITER thus becomes a shared tool, designed to enable science, industry, and public services across Europe to advance faster and with greater ambition than ever before.