December 30, 1969
Supercomputers
The Jülich supercomputers are currently among the most powerful computers in the world. They are used by scientists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and by several hundred research groups throughout Germany and Europe.
They are the hidden stars among Jülich’s large-scale facilities: Supercomputers at Forschungszentrum Jülich have been among the fastest computers in the world for years. Their performance is even surpassed by JUPITER, which is currently being built on our campus – enormous computing power for big data and artificial intelligence (AI).
JUPITER will be the first European exascale computer. It can perform over a quintillion arithmetic operations per second with twice the accuracy, and significantly more for AI workloads. This makes it an outstanding tool for climate research or training large AI models, for example.
JUPITER: Europe's first exascale supercomputer
With the “Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research“, JUPITER for short, Forschungszentrum Jülich will be home to the first European exascale computer. As one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world, JUPITER will take scientific simulations to a new level - a driver of progress for Germany and Europe that will secure technological and digital sovereignty.
JUPITER is designed to perform a quintillion floating-point operations per second, easily outperforming 1 million state-of-the-art smartphones. Jülich’s new number one will thus help to achieve breakthroughs in AI and open new doors for research. Our supercomputers are providing the computing power to address complex research issues. For example, they are used to provide insights into how potential active substances dock onto a receptor, how the climate is changing, how galaxies are formed, and how semiconductor and energy materials function. Scientists simulate all this and more on supercomputers.
A construction kit for supercomputers
Research that focuses on the grand challenges of the future cannot succeed without supercomputers. Only such systems can cope with the huge amounts of data that researchers are generating through increasingly precise measurement methods and procedures. Simulations on supercomputers make it possible to gain insights that cannot be obtained through purely experimental or theoretical approaches. The Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) is also offering top-level computing time to actors outside Forschungszentrum Jülich via the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing.
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At JSC, we also collaborate with national and international partners to test and develop new concepts and technologies for next-generation supercomputers. These will integrate various technologies that can be combined in different ways depending on the requirements – thanks to a dynamic modular supercomputing architecture developed at Jülich. This involves connecting digital supercomputers with quantum computers and neuromorphic systems according to the building-block principle. In this way, new types of computers will be created that can be used flexibly for different research approaches.
Not only science, but also industry, is experiencing an increasing demand for computing power. The exascale supercomputer JUPITER is a major driver of progress for Germany and Europe, which ensures technological and digital sovereignty. It will help us to develop transparent and democratic AI models, thus strengthening European competitiveness and independence.
Europe's first exascale supercomputer JUPITER explained in a video. Copyright: Forschungszentrum Jülich
EXPERTISE IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
Focus on energy efficiency
In all this, we also keep an eye on the energy efficiency of supercomputers. With success: JUPITER is equipped with particularly energy-efficient processors and is the most energy-efficient system among the top 5 in the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers (as of June 2025).
Nevertheless, data centers in Germany require increasingly more energy. Currently, they account for just under four percent of Germany's electricity consumption, and this figure is rising, particularly due to the increased use of artificial intelligence. For this reason, we are working on efficient computer technologies that will make high-performance computing fit for the future.
Researchers in Jülich are breaking new ground to make computers even more economical: In the future, quantum computers could solve certain tasks much faster and more efficiently than is possible with classical computers. And the human brain is by no means obsolete. In some areas, it is significantly more energy-efficient than a supercomputer. Neuromorphic systems, such as those we are developing in Jülich, therefore take our thinking organ as a model to revolutionize computer technology.
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Last Modified: 16.07.2025