Jülich is becoming an AI stronghold: insights into the JUPITER AI Factory!

Jülich is becoming an AI stronghold: insights into the JUPITER AI Factory!

On April 24, 2025, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Henna Virkkunen, visited the Forschungszentrum Jülich to inspect the newly founded JUPITER AI Factory. This facility is part of an ambitious project to create a network of AI factories in Europe, which aims to significantly increase the competitiveness of European companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Virkkunen was accompanied by Alexander von Humboldt Professor Holger Hoos, who was also present during the visit. During her stay, she praised the Jülich Supercomputing Center and in particular Europe's first exascale supercomputer, JUPITER. This supercomputer will be operational in the coming months and will provide start-ups, small and medium-sized companies and research institutions with access to enormous computing power and technical infrastructure that is essential for developing and scaling AI applications. JUPITER's powerful calculations reach a quintillion calculation operations per second, making them among the best in the world.

Goals and challenges of the JUPITER AI Factory

The JUPITER AI Factory was launched with an investment volume of around 55 million euros, supported by EuroHPC, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the science ministries of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse. The aim of this initiative is to create a comprehensive AI ecosystem that advances support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups in training secure and privacy-compliant AI models in various key strategic areas, such as health, energy, climate change, education, media, public sector and finance.

The JAIF consortium, led by Professor Thomas Lippert, consists of several renowned partners, including the Forschungszentrum Jülich, RWTH Aachen and the Fraunhofer Society. Professor Kobus Kuipers from RWTH Aachen emphasized the importance of speed in AI development and emphasized that North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany are creating a solid basis for expanding computing capacity for AI.

Support for innovation

The JUPITER is complemented by a specialized inference module that accelerates access to AI models via the cloud. This cloud-based platform, known as JARVIS (JUPITER Advanced Research Vehicle for Inference Services), handles the inference and optimization of the AI ​​models. This makes the JUPITER AI Factory not only a production facility for AI, but also an important innovation center for research and development.

Towards establishing the European Union as a global leader in artificial intelligence, the EU Commission is pursuing an action plan that identifies five key areas to strengthen AI and supercomputing infrastructure. In addition to the JUPITER AI Factory, existing initiatives also include collaborations with other leading AI factories in Europe, such as the BSC AIF in Spain and IT4LIA in Italy.

Virkkunen's visit to the Jülich Research Center was seen by European Minister Nathanael Liminski as an important recognition for the research location of North Rhine-Westphalia and the research center itself. The JUPITER AI Factory is a decisive step towards a connected and competitive European AI industry.

RWTH Aachen reports that the JUPITER AI Factory plays a central role within the European AI infrastructure. Also provides more information FZ Jülich, which report comprehensively on developments.