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Supercomputer in Jülich (archive photo): The new computer is to be operated with green electricity
Photo: A3250 Oliver Berg/ dpa
The Jülich research center becomes the location of the first European computer that can perform more than a trillion arithmetic operations per second (more precisely: floating point operations).
The computing power will surpass that of five million modern notebooks or PCs, the research center announced on Wednesday.
The so-called exascale computer called Jupiter enables the intensive use of so-called artificial intelligence and the analysis of large amounts of data.
Exa stands for 1018, which is a one followed by 18 zeros, which equals a trillion.
Jupiter will consume up to 15 megawatts on average and will be operated with green electricity.
Which manufacturer builds the system is to be decided after a tender.
The calculator is intended to help solve scientific questions such as climate change and sustainable energy production.
Cost of the project: half a billion euros.
Of this, 250 million come from the European supercomputing initiative EuroHPC JU and a further 250 million from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) said that the computer coming to Jülich was "an award for science and excellence overall in our state".
Exascale computers are still rare
There is – at least officially – only one supercomputer of this type in the world: the system called Frontier is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US state of Tennessee.
In addition, there are probably already two exascale systems in operation in China, which apparently have not been reported for the list of the fastest supercomputers.
The supercomputers Juwels, Jureca and Jusuf are already located in Jülich.
Juniq was also put into operation there at the beginning of the year: the so-called quantum annealer is the first model of its kind outside of North America.
The system, which is cooled to almost minus 273 degrees Celsius inside the machine, was developed by the Canadian company D-Wave.
It stands in a purpose-built building with two machine halls.
The halls have special foundations that absorb vibrations.
pbe/dpa/AFP