How JHC is integrating HPC, AI, and quantum

The Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) advances high-performance computing in Europe by advancing cutting-edge systems such as JUPITER and integrating AI and quantum technologies to tackle complex scientific, social and industrial challenges.

At the heart of European scientific computing, the Julich Julich Supercomputing Center (Julich, North Rhine-Westphalia) has grown from a national computational science hub in the 1980s to a global powerhouse in high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging quantum technologies. With a long tradition of innovation, strong collaboration across academia and industry, and a firm commitment to advancing Europe’s digital sovereignty, JSC is shaping the next era of HPC-enabled scientific discovery.

Building Europe’s HPC future

JSC’s journey began with the early introduction of large-scale computing to scientific research and helped position Germany as a pioneer in computational science. For decades, JSC has fostered an ecosystem that combines national research priorities with European cooperation, academic partnerships and industrial use cases, from climate science and materials modeling to energy systems and life sciences.

A hallmark of JSC’s approach is its ability to anticipate and adapt to major changes in computational science. Long before “AI” dominated technology headlines, JSC’s systems designed for massively parallel processing and cutting-edge hardware enabled large-scale machine learning research and data-intensive simulations, fostering a culture of innovation that bridged the needs of HPC and AI.

JUWELS: A new blueprint for modular supercomputing

A landmark step in this evolution was the JUWELS supercomputer. Built as a modular HPC platform, JUWELS has earned a reputation for performance, flexibility and efficiency, making it one of the best HPC systems in Europe. In particular, its Booster module combines GPU accelerators with traditional CPU resources to enable highly scalable simulations such as climate research, molecular dynamics, and particle physics, making JUWELS one of the first systems in Europe to effectively support large-scale AI augmented workflows. These capabilities have helped position JUWELS as a bridge between traditional HPC and the new demands of AI-driven computing.

JUPITER: Europe’s first exascale supercomputer

At the heart of JSC’s current strategy is JUPITER, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer. This is a system that will redefine scientific computing across the continent. Commissioned in 2024 and brought online to great media attention in 2025, JUPITER has a sustained performance of over 1 ExaFLOP/s, making it not only Europe’s fastest supercomputer, but also one of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in its class. Its heterogeneous architecture features a superchip that tightly integrates CPU cores and GPU accelerators, delivering extreme versatility across workloads from classic simulation to cutting-edge AI research.

Professor Thomas Lippert, one of the two directors of the Jülich Supercomputing Center, said: “But what really matters is what it enables. A new era in which high-performance computing becomes an agile platform for innovation in science and AI, allowing researchers to tackle problems that were previously out of reach.”

JUPITER’s combination of power, scalability, and adaptability positions it as a leading engine of next-generation science advancing fields as diverse as climate modeling, materials design, and biomedical research.

JUPITER AI Factory: Exascale for everyone

One of JSC’s most strategic innovations is the JUPITER AI Factory (JAIF). This is the infrastructure layer that leverages JUPITER’s exascale capabilities to make it broadly accessible. JAIF provides universities, research institutes, startups, small businesses, and industry partners with a collaborative platform to develop, scale, and deploy AI applications.

This approach reflects JSC’s long-standing commitment to open and collaborative HPC. Through JAIF, users can experiment with training and tuning AI models at scale, perform data-intensive analytics, and integrate exascale computing into research and industrial workflows. By providing training and community support, JAIF helps foster a vibrant ecosystem that connects scientific discovery and practical innovation, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness in AI and data-driven research.

Quantum Computing at JSC: JUNIQ and Hybrid Computing

While HPC remains JSC’s core mission, JSC is also active in expanding into quantum technologies. At the heart of this effort is JUNIQ, a multiplatform quantum computing infrastructure that integrates diverse hardware and software tools, as well as user support for science and industry.

In late 2024, JSC added Pasqal’s 100-qubit quantum computer (now named JADE) to its quantum portfolio. This is an important milestone for JUNIQ and hybrid classical quantum exploration. The system will officially launch in 2025 and will enhance JSC’s ability to explore hybrid HPC quantum applications that have the potential to accelerate specific classes of problems, such as optimization and materials discovery.

“Quantum computing at JSC is not a separate field,” said Professor Christel Michelsen, JSC Director and Director of JUNIQ. “We’re studying how it complements HPC. Systems like JUNIQ and JADE allow us to experiment with hybrid approaches that can dramatically accelerate scientific discovery and open new computational pathways.”

By deploying quantum systems in parallel with exascale infrastructure, JSC provides researchers with a range of computing paradigms: classical, AI-enhanced, and quantum within a single integrated platform.

Milestones and global collaboration

JSC’s influence extends far beyond its machines. Our integration into European and international consortia, including the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaining (EuroHPC JU), ensures that German and European researchers have access to world-class resources and can contribute their expertise in scalable software frameworks, HPC architectures, and interdisciplinary research. Through these collaborations, JSC helps define the future of computational science in Europe and the world.

Connect HPC, AI, and quantum to tackle grand challenges

As computational science evolves, JSC’s mission remains ambitious and future-oriented. The seamless integration of HPC, AI, and quantum technologies represents not just a technological frontier, but a strategic frontier: an infrastructure ecosystem that can address big challenges, from climate change, sustainable energy, and advanced materials to public health and more.

JSC’s vision extends beyond standalone systems to integrated computational ecosystems, including hybrid HPC quantum workflows, shared platforms such as the JUPITER AI Factory, and cross-disciplinary collaborative communities across borders and disciplines. HPC remains at the heart of this vision, with exascale computing, exemplified by Europe’s first exascale supercomputer JUPITER, enabling science at scale, accelerating innovation and opening new horizons in computational discovery. Through efforts to bring quantum resources and classical supercomputing closer together, researchers can explore hybrid approaches to tackle complex problems and expand the scope of computational science, just as JSC has aimed to do from the beginning.

This article will also be published in the quarterly magazine issue 25.