The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has selected seven consortia to set up and run the first artificial intelligence (AI) factories in Europe. Among the selected projects was the LUMI AI supercomputer co-funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. LUMI AI will replace one of the fastest supercomputers in Europe, LUMI.
Installation of the new supercomputer dedicated to artificial intelligence is planned as early as for 2026. The planned computing power of the supercomputer places it among the fastest machines in the world. This will expand Europe's supercomputing ecosystem with new resources dedicated to training advanced AI models and developing dedicated artificial intelligence solutions.
Exascale computing resources for artificial intelligence
The key computational resource of the new LUMI AI supercomputer will be a large, accelerated partition using the latest generation of graphics processing units (GPUs). These are currently the best solutions dedicated to artificial intelligence computing. GPUs offer the flexibility to support various calculations, from training to inference and classical simulations. Their advantage over application-specific accelerators is versatility. The planned system will provide, among other things:
- more than 15,000 GPUs with total computing power for AI applications exceeding 20 ExaFlops,
- the high-speed internal supercomputer network with 800 Gbps of bandwidth,
- 20 PetaBytes of high-speed SSD memory for artificial intelligence tasks.
The total computing power of the new supercomputer will be about 6 times that of the current LUMI. The total budget for the new system is more than 600 million euros. Half of this amount comes from the European Commission and half from the countries forming the consortium. The Polish contribution is 10 million euros, funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The supercomputer will be installed at the computing centre in Kajaani (Finland).
LUMI supercomputer - world-class AI research
The LUMI supercomputer offers at the moment the largest European computing resources for artificial intelligence. 380 PetaFlops of sustained computing power is available to researchers within dedicated partitions:
- accelerated, based on GPUs,
- classical, built with traditional CPUs,
- data analysis.
The LUMI supercomputer can be accessed through the PLGrid Portal. The supercomputer was built by the LUMI Consortium, which, in addition to Poland and Finland, includes Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Poland is represented in the LUMI Consortium by the Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH in Krakow, the operator of Poland's fastest supercomputer, Helios. The Polish contribution is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
The strength of the LUMI Consortium is the combination of the partners' unique knowledge and experience in HPC infrastructure and conducting computing, both large-scale and for artificial intelligence. The combination of this knowledge and the available computing infrastructure is a solid foundation for building a top-quality ecosystem for conducting supercomputing.
Ecosystem for Artificial Intelligence in Europe
EuroHPC JU has approved the implementation of seven artificial intelligence factories. Five will build new supercomputers dedicated to artificial intelligence in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Luxembourg, and Finland. The other two AI factories will be located in Spain and Greece. The first Polish AI Factory will be established in 2025 at ACC Cyfronet AGH.
Investment in supercomputing resources is one of the pillars of EuroHPC JU's artificial intelligence activity. Many instruments support the development of research in this field. These include the EuroHPC Competence Centers, specialized application support programs - the EPICURE project, support for entrepreneurs from cascading funds - the Fortissimo Plus project. These instruments are, on the one hand, direct assistance and support for the scientific community and entrepreneurs and, on the other hand, a mechanism for knowledge transfer in using supercomputing resources for artificial intelligence and modelling. Polish activities in this area are coordinated by Cyfronet in Krakow, with the participation of all Polish supercomputing centres and the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
