Atos and AMD to Build Exascale Supercomputer in France
Eviden, a subsidiary of Atos, and AMD have been selected to construct Alice Recoque, an exascale supercomputer in France, according to a statement from Atos.
The Alice Recoque project represents a total investment of 554 million euros and spans over a period of five years, according to information provided by Eviden, Atos's subsidiary, and AMD. This exascale supercomputer, the first of its kind in France and the second in Europe, will be capable of achieving a computing performance of 1 exaflop per second, equivalent to 1 billion billion calculations per second in double precision mode. This power also equates to what humanity could achieve in four years of uninterrupted mental calculations. The computing capacity of the CEA's intensive computing center (TGCC) will thus be increased by fifty times, while only requiring a fivefold increase in electrical power.
The Alice Recoque supercomputer is the result of a collaboration between several entities, with funding provided by EuroHPC JU and the Jules Verne consortium, led by France with participation from the Netherlands and Greece. Installed at the CEA's Very Large Computing Center, Alice Recoque incorporates cutting-edge technologies provided by AMD, including next-generation EPYC™ processors and Instinct™ MI430X GPUs, as well as FPGAs and a European processor Rhea2 developed by SiPearl. The system is interconnected by Eviden's network, BXI v3, and complemented by DDN storage solutions. The project aims to enhance research capabilities in Europe, particularly in the fields of climate modeling, materials innovation and energy, and artificial intelligence applications.
Alice Recoque is part of a broader strategy to strengthen European technological sovereignty, using components predominantly produced in Europe. This project aims to support scientific and industrial research in Europe while ensuring optimal energy efficiency, with an estimated 20% improvement in energy efficiency of applications compared to equivalent exascale systems. This is made possible by the innovative architecture of the BullSequana XH3500 platform developed by Eviden, which allows for optimized performance and reduced costs and energy consumption. The supercomputer is expected to become a crucial pillar for the development of artificial intelligence and quantum computing in Europe, according to statements from project partners.
