SiPearl has delivered the first Rhea1 CPUs to Bull for integration into JUPITER, Europe’s fastest operating supercomputer, the company says. This delivery marks a milestone in European technological sovereignty, as Rhea1 is the first European-designed CPU set to power a European-built platform.
The Rhea1 package includes 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores with 61 billion transistors, making it the most complex server CPU ever designed in Europe, and early benchmarking data indicates performance is strong in some areas. “The delivery of the first Rhea1 CPUs marks an important milestone for Europe’s supercomputing sovereignty,” said Anders Dam Jensen, Executive Director of EuroHPC JU.
Rhea1 CPUs Integrate with Bull’s JUPITER Supercomputer
The integration of 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores within a single Rhea1 package represents a new level of complexity for a server CPU designed in Europe, exceeding previous domestic chip designs in core count and integration scale. Bull has begun the process of integrating the Rhea1 onto its BullSequana XH3000 platform, a necessary precursor to JUPITER’s full modular assembly.
Procured by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, JUPITER will be hosted at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) in Germany, and the Rhea1 CPUs will contribute to the development of the machine’s CPU blade, working alongside a dedicated GPU partition, according to the company. This modular approach allows for workload optimization, with the Rhea1 handling complex, data-intensive tasks that benefit from its architecture.
The CPU’s high memory bandwidth, facilitated by four stacks of HBM and four DDR5 interfaces, is particularly suited to applications requiring efficient access to large datasets. “Rhea1 plays an important role in JUPITER’s Cluster Module, complementing the GPU-based Booster with a CPU-based architecture designed for a broad range of complex and data-intensive workloads,” noted Prof. Dr. Thomas Lippert, Director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Early benchmarking data from SiPearl’s laboratories indicates that Rhea1’s performance is exceeding expectations in several key areas, though consolidated figures will not be published until this autumn. This positive initial assessment suggests a potential performance advantage for the European-designed chip against existing architectures. The Rhea1 package also prioritizes security, offering back-door free and kill switch free operation, alongside energy efficiency and flexibility, features increasingly important for sovereign computing initiatives.
This first order for Rhea1 CPUs represents SiPearl’s initial revenue stream, validating the company’s business model and paving the way for future growth. The implications of JUPITER’s capabilities extend beyond computational power; the system is expected to drive innovation across multiple sectors, including improved extreme weather forecasting, accelerated breakthroughs in climate science, sustainable energy, artificial intelligence, quantum research, and structural biology, the firm reports. JUPITER will empower researchers and industries throughout Europe.
“Together with Bull, our long-standing partner, we are taking a major step towards Europe’s digital sovereignty by equipping the CPU cluster of the European exascale supercomputer JUPITER with European hardware,” highlighted Bruno Lecointe, Head of HPC, AI and Quantum at Bull. The achievement is a direct result of the European Processor Initiative, which provided support for the development of a European processor now being deployed in JUPITER.
This achievement demonstrates what Europe can accomplish by bringing together research, industry, and infrastructure to build a stronger European HPC ecosystem.” SiPearl CEO and Founder, Philippe Notton, emphasized the collaborative effort behind this milestone. “This will be a first in Europe.
I am very proud of this, as it is also a wonderful human endeavor in which teams from SiPearl, Bull, Forschungszentrum Jülich and all our European partners have worked together to ensure the success of this ambitious project, with the unwavering support of EuroHPC JU and the European authorities.” The Rhea1’s integration into JUPITER signifies not only a technological advancement but also a demonstration of strengthened European collaboration in the pursuit of digital independence.
The delivery of the first Rhea1 CPUs marks a milestone for Europe’s supercomputing sovereignty. Through the European Processor Initiative, EuroHPC JU has supported the development of a European processor that is now moving from innovation to deployment in JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer.
Anders Dam Jensen, Executive Director of EuroHPC JU
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