The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) has awarded a contract to GÉANT, the Association of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) to hyperconnect European supercomputers. The contract aims to provide ultra-high bandwidth, secure, pan-European interconnect services for the EuroHPC supercomputing infrastructure, with the goal of giving research communities, public sector, industry, and other innovation stakeholders direct, high-performance access to EuroHPC resources.
In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured eleven supercomputers located across Europe. Three of these EuroHPC supercomputers are now ranked among the world’s top 10 most powerful supercomputers: JUPITER in Germany ranks at 4, becoming Europe’s new fastest supercomputer along with LUMI in Finland (9th place) and Leonardo in Italy (10th place). Currently, the EuroHPC JU is also overseeing the implementation of 13 AI factories across Europe that offer free, customized support to SMEs and startups. The EuroHPC JU is also deploying a European Quantum Computing infrastructure, integrating diverse European quantum computing technologies with supercomputers.
GÉANT was selected after an open call for tenders (EUROHPC/2024/OP/0008) and the contract, valued at up to 60 million euro, covers the design, implementation, and operation of the hyperconnectivity infrastructure over 48 months. This agreement strengthens Europe’s supercomputing ecosystem and builds upon the existing GÉANT network infrastructure to create a hyperconnected infrastructure with transmission capabilities in the terabits-per-second range. Initial deployment activities in 27 EU Member State countries are expected to begin soon, with first services available in 2026, connecting EuroHPC supercomputers, AI, and quantum sites.