© Forschungszentrum Jülich
With the creation of the JUPITER AI Factory (JAIF) in Jülich, the research and development of European Artificial Intelligence (AI) is receiving a massive boost. The AI Factory offers start-ups, SMEs and industry access to the JUPITER supercomputer and is also open to research institutions and the public sector. As an exascale-class supercomputer, JUPITER is one of the most powerful computers in the world. With its computing power, AI applications can be developed, tested, improved and scaled faster than ever before. In addition, JUPITER will receive a specialized inference module that accelerates access to AI models via the cloud. Several leading German AI institutions have joined forces in the joint project, including the WESTAI partners Forschungszentrum Jülich (coordination), RWTH Aachen University, the Fraunhofer Institutes for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS and for Applied Information Technology FIT. Closely networked with existing German AI centers such as WestAI and the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning, JAIF is pursuing the goal of making Europe less dependent on AI technologies developed outside of Germany and taking on a leading role in international competition.
The JUPITER AI Factory is intended to offer companies in particular a central point of contact for exploiting the potential of the JUPITER supercomputer. The focus is on the strategically important application areas of healthcare, energy, climate change, education, media, the public sector and finance. In addition to access to high-performance computing power, start-ups and SMEs also receive targeted consulting, training and modern services for data curation, AI base models and application optimization. “With the JUPITER AI Factory, we are creating a powerful platform for AI that is groundbreaking for the European supercomputing infrastructure,” says Prof. Thomas Lippert, Institute Director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre at Forschungszentrum Jülich. The supercomputer will go into operation there in the coming months. JUPITER will be the first computer in Europe to break the barrier of 1 trillion computing operations per second and thus also enable the development of complex, efficient, and groundbreaking AI applications.
Joint project bundles AI expertise
JAIF combines the expertise of several leading German AI institutions, such as the coordinating Jülich Supercomputing Centre, the Center for Artificial Intelligence at RWTH Aachen University, the Fraunhofer Institutes for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS and for Applied Information Technology FIT and the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence. The JUPITER AI Factory also benefits from the experience and networking with existing projects and initiatives at state, federal and EU level, such as the AI Service Center WestAI, the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and the KI.NRW competence platform.
JAIF is funded with around 55 million euros by the European supercomputing initiative EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the science ministries in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse.
JARVIS: AI inference in real time
In addition to the powerful supercomputer, a special inference module is being developed with JARVIS. While JUPITER is primarily geared towards training AI models, JARVIS is intended to significantly accelerate the subsequent application and optimization – for example in image recognition, text generation or complex calculations. The system integrates experimental European technologies and enables innovative processes such as inference time scaling.
Europe’s AI offensive and strategic importance
The JUPITER AI Factory is a central project within the European Commission’s “AI Innovation Package to support Artificial Intelligence Startups and SMEs” and thus part of a broad strategy of the European Union (EU) to build a powerful AI infrastructure. Alongside Jülich, Stuttgart is one of the first German locations with the AI Factory HammerHAI. A total of 13 AI factories are being established in Europe, including in France, Spain, and Italy. The aim is to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in the global AI market while maintaining ethical standards and data protection guidelines.
The EU and its member states are investing a total of 1.5 billion euros to build AI-optimized supercomputers and data centers. Germany is positioning itself as one of the leading AI locations in Europe. The establishment of an AI factory in Jülich also plays an important role for European independence in the field of AI: “With JUPITER, we are unleashing AI research in Germany and Europe,” says Federal Research Minister Cem Özdemir. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister President Hendrik Wüst describes the establishment of the AI factory as an important step for structural change in the region: “Where coal was once mined, a digital power plant of the future is now being built.”
More information
To the Press Release of Forschungszentrum Jülich
To the Press Release of the State of NRW