Nvidia continues to push forward in quantum computing with the launch of its most ambitious project yet: Europe’s first exascale supercomputer. JUPITER — short for Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research — is, as the name suggests, a joint effort within the broader European initiative to advance high-performance computing (HPC). NVIDIA’s press release in April sent shockwaves through the public, especially given the rapid development, with construction reportedly set to begin on June 11, 2025. Set to be housed at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Forschungszentrum Jülich, in Jülich, Germany, the project aims to accelerate scientific discovery and industrial innovation in quantum computing, climate change, and material science.

While such developments may seem routine in our rapidly advancing modern age, Jupiter stands out as one of the world’s top-performing supercomputers—and the first of its kind in Europe. Jupiter’s computing power alone would not have earned it such a name if it was not for the advanced AI simulation and enormous data analysis capabilities behind it.

The development of the supercomputer has been ongoing since June 2022, marked by continuous advancements, with Forschungszentrum Jülich selected to host Jupiter by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, which invested approximately €250 million during the first two years. Additionally, €125 million was provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and a further €125 million by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW NRW), bringing the total budget to €500 million and ranking Jupiter as the most expensive supercomputer ever built in Europe. Nvidia joined the project at a later stage, signing a contract in October 2023, and has since been a consistent contributor to the system’s development. Further into the development, in 2024, the European Processor Initiative (EPI) publicly released Jupiter’s roadmap, confirming an early launch in 2025 and emphasizing Jupiter’s role as Europe’s first exascale supercomputer.

The installation of the supercomputer was scheduled for early 2024 and following the successful deployment of JEDI, its first module has been utilized by German and European researchers through the JUPITER Research and Early Access Program (JUREAP), targeting approximately 20 applications. At that stage, it ranked 1st on the Green500 list for energy efficiency, achieving 72 billion FLOPS per watt however, after the installation of the second module, it dropped to 18th place only to climb back and secure an astonishing 4th place once the full system was integrated in 10th of June, 2025.

The JUREAP program supports initial scientific use before general operation begins, however, Jupiter is expected to become fully operational for a broader range of applications by late 2025, supporting quantum physics, AI development, medical research, and various industrial applications.

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