NVIDIA and HPE join forces to build a new supercomputer

NVIDIA and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) have announced a collaboration with the Leibniz Supercomputer Center to build a new supercomputer using NVIDIA’s next-generation chips.

The project is called the Blue Lion supercomputer and will be available to scientists in early 2027. Press agency Reuters says it will be powered by NVIDIA’s “Vera Rubin” chips.

The announcement was made at a supercomputing conference in Hamburg, Germany. It followed NVIDIA’s announcement that the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the United States plans to build a system using NVIDIA’s chips.

In addition, NVIDIA told attendees that Jupiter, a supercomputer using the company’s chips at the German national research institute Forschungszentrum Julich, has officially become Europe’s fastest computer.

The Blue Lion Project is part of a broader European strategy to compete with the United States in the field of supercomputers. These systems are designed for scientific research in numerous fields, including biotechnology and climate research.

NVIDIA’s chips aren’t solely used for gaming, mining bitcoins, or training large language models (LLMs). They are also used to speed up the process that requires complex and precise calculations, such as modeling climate change. Even with NVIDIA’s powerful chips, these kinds of calculations could take months at a time.

According to Reuters, NVIDIA is currently trying to persuade scientists to use artificial intelligence (AI) to advance calculations and modeling. While AI calculations aren’t as accurate as fully calculated results, they are still helpful and take far less time to produce valuable results.

Dion Harris, Head of Data Center Product Marketing at NVIDIA, said that scientists can generate a weather forecast for 10 to 30 years ahead with the input of only a few initial conditions.

“Researchers will use a combined approach of classical physics and AI to resolve turbulent atmospheric flows. This technique will allow them to analyze thousands and thousands more scenarios in greater detail than ever before,” Harris said in a press briefing.