AMD Powers France's First Exascale Supercomputer in €544 Million European AI Independence Push

AMD Secures Major European Supercomputing Contract

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has partnered with French technology company Eviden to build Alice Recoque, France's first exascale supercomputer and Europe's second such system. The €544 million ($630 million) project represents a significant milestone in European efforts to achieve technological sovereignty in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing 1

1

Source: DT

Named after French computer scientist Alice Recoque who passed away in 2021, the supercomputer will deliver more than one exaflop of High-Performance Linpack (HPL) performance, making it capable of performing over one billion-billion calculations per second 3

3

Cutting-Edge Hardware Architecture

The Alice Recoque system will be powered by AMD's next-generation EPYC 'Venice' processors featuring up to 256 cores, paired with the company's upcoming Instinct MI430X accelerators based on CDNA 5 architecture. These accelerators will be equipped with 432 GB of HBM4 memory specifically tailored for high-performance computing while supporting FP4 and FP8 data formats for AI workloads 1

1

Source: Tom's Hardware

The full installation will consist of 94 racks based on Eviden's BullSequana XH3500 platform, interconnected by the company's high-bandwidth BullSequana eXascale Interconnect (BXI) networking technology. The third version of BXI supports speeds up to 800 Gbps in switches with 400 Gbps adapters, complemented by DDN storage systems 2

2

European Sovereignty Initiative

The project is being funded through a collaborative European effort involving the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, the Digital Europe Programme, and the Jules Verne consortium, which includes France (GENCI, CEA), the Netherlands (SURF), and Greece (GRNET). This funding structure reflects Europe's strategic commitment to reducing dependence on foreign technology companies, particularly in critical areas like AI and scientific computing 1

1

Interestingly, the system will also incorporate sovereign Rhea2 CPUs developed in Europe, marking the first mention of this second-generation processor from SiPearl. However, since Rhea2 has not yet taped out, this partition is expected to arrive in 2027, following the main AMD-powered system 1

1

Related Stories

AMD and DOE Forge $1 Billion Partnership for Sovereign AI Supercomputers

Europe Unveils 35 NVIDIA AI Supercomputers Across 23 Countries With 800 Exaflops of Power

Europe orders €388M AI supercomputer from state-owned Bull to close computing gap with US and China

AMD Partners with France's CEA to Advance AI Computing Technologies

Energy Efficiency and Deployment Timeline

Despite its massive computational power, Alice Recoque is designed to operate at approximately 12 megawatts during typical workloads, making it more energy-efficient than comparable exascale systems. The system will utilize Eviden's 5th Generation warm-water liquid cooling technology for all power-hungry components, featuring fanless direct liquid cooling to handle the denser, hotter infrastructure 2

2

The supercomputer will be installed at France's National High-Performance Computing Equipment (GENCI) facility in Paris, with CEA responsible for operations once deployed. Given that AMD plans to introduce its EPYC 'Venice' CPUs and Instinct MI430X accelerators in 2026, the system is expected to enter service in 2027 or 2028 1

1

Source: Benzinga

Research Applications and Market Impact

Alice Recoque will serve researchers and industrial users across Europe, supporting diverse projects including climate research, materials and energy science, personalized medicine, AI model development, and analysis of massive data streams from satellites, telescopes, and IoT sources. The system is being positioned as an "AI Factory" covering the entire AI lifecycle, though this differs from Nvidia's definition as it will also handle traditional HPC workloads 5

5

For AMD, this contract represents a significant victory in its competition with Nvidia in the AI and HPC markets. The company's stock has gained over 99% year-to-date, driven by expansion in AI data center GPU space and continued market share gains against Intel in CPU markets 4

4