Eviden, the Atos Group's advanced computing brand, along with AMD, have been chosen to build Alice Recoque, a supercomputer set to enhance Europe's capabilities in scientific computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Alice Recoque will be France’s first and Europe’s second Exascale supercomputer, aiming to expand Europe's AI and research capabilities while maintaining energy efficiency and ensuring technological sovereignty.
The project, spearheaded by France’s GENCI and operated by CEA, is designed to perform over one Exaflop per second, significantly boosting computational capacity for scientific simulations.
This represents a fiftyfold increase in computing power compared to its predecessor while increasing electrical power only fivefold.
With a total investment of 554 million euros over five years, funding is sourced from EuroHPC JU, the Digital Europe Programme (DEP), and the Jules Verne consortium, which includes participation from the Netherlands and Greece.
Alice Recoque will be installed at CEA’s Very Large Computing Center (TGCC) in France, home to existing Eviden-built systems.
Combining HPC and AI workloads, it integrates cutting-edge hardware and advanced AI software to deliver high-impact, scalable solutions.
Central to its design are next-gen AMD EPYC CPUs, AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs, and FPGAs, alongside a Rhea2 processor developed by SiPearl. The system's network solution, BXIv3, along with storage from DDN, forms part of Eviden’s BullSequana XH3500 platform.
The supercomputer will address a range of critical challenges, from climate modelling to enabling personalized medicine through digital twins and accelerating innovation in materials and energy.
It will also manage the vast data generated by scientific instruments, IoT devices, and AI applications. A key feature includes its energy-efficient design, which aims to meet Europe's green computing goals.
Alice Recoque’s components largely comprise European technologies, ensuring compliance and reduced geopolitical risks. The project involves relocating nearly three-quarters of BullSequana XH3500 production to Europe, reinforcing digital sovereignty through secure, sustainable technologies.
The system's exceptional memory performance across its 94 racks will support demanding HPC workloads, enabling rapid simulations and scientific insights.
The project's success hinges on Eviden’s integrated hardware and smart software, aiming for a 20% improvement in workload energy efficiency compared to other systems.
Their Argos software ensures real-time monitoring and energy optimisation, while the 5th generation Direct Liquid Cooling technology provides sustainable solutions, cooling all rack components with warm water.
Key figures have emphasised the strategic importance of the Alice Recoque project, highlighting its role in propelling Europe forward in HPC, AI, and quantum technologies. French Minister Philippe Baptiste noted its potential impact on high-performance computing and digital leadership.
Other officials, including Greek Minister Dimitris Papastergiou and EuroHPC JU's Anders Jensen, praised the project for fostering European collaboration and innovation. Executives from AMD and SiPearl echoed these sentiments, recognising the supercomputer's potential to drive scientific progress and reinforce European technological sovereignty.
The Alice Recoque project illustrates Europe’s commitment to developing its digital infrastructure, supporting a technological ecosystem that anticipates future challenges, and encouraging innovation and collaboration across the continent.
Eviden, the Atos Group product brand pioneering in advanced computing, and AMD announced their selection to build Alice Recoque, a next-generation supercomputer to support the need for scientific computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), serving as an AI Factory.
Alice Recoque will be France’s first and Europe’s second Exascale supercomputer, a machine to expand Europe’s AI and research capabilities while ensuring energy efficiency and sovereignty.
This project, led by France GENCI, operated by CEA, will have the capacity to surpass one Exaflop per second (i.e. a billion calculations per second) for scientific simulation.
Funded by EuroHPC JU
This extreme performance, equivalent to more calculations than humanity could accomplish in four years of relentless mental computation, will mark a fiftyfold an increase in the computing capacity compared to the previous system, while only multiplying by 5 the electrical power.
This project, representing an overall cost of 554 million euros over 5 years of operation, is funded by EuroHPC JU, with budget stemming from the Digital Europe Programme (DEP), and by the Jules Verne consortium, led by France through GENCI and CEA with the participation of Netherlands with SURF and Greece with GRNET.
Alice Recoque will be installed within France’s CEA’s Very Large Computing Center (TGCC), which already hosts Eviden-built systems such as GENCI’s Joliot-Curie machine and CEA’s Topaze machine.
Combining traditional HPC and AI workloads
Alice Recoque will tackle Europe’s most pressing societal, scientific, and industrial challenges by combining traditional High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads from large-scale simulations, data analysis, and AI models.
Alice Recoque covers the entire computing lifecycle, integrating cutting-edge hardware and advanced AI software to deliver scalable high-impact solutions. This project is a live implementation of the strong collaboration and commitment from Eviden and AMD to accelerate research and industrialization of HPC-AI use cases, with a major investment in both human and technological resources.
Powered by next-gen AMD EPYC CPUs
The acceleration partition of the Alice Recoque system will be powered by next-gen AMD EPYC CPUs, codenamed “Venice,” AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs—a new MI400 Series accelerator engineered for sovereign AI and scientific computing— and AMD FPGAs.
In addition, Alice Recoque will welcome a scalar compute partition based on the European Rhea2 processor developed by SiPearl. The entire system will be interconnected by Eviden’s network solution (BXIv3) into its newest BullSequana XH3500 platform, along with storage solutions provided by DDN.
This powerful ecosystem will enhance climate modelling, accelerate innovation in materials and energy, enable digital twins for personalised medicine, and support next-gen European foundational AI models. It will also address the vast amount of data generated by scientific instruments such as telescopes, satellites as well as IoT devices, and AI applications, driving breakthroughs across multiple domains.
Committing to a sovereign and controlled supply chain
As a result of a shared ambition for technological sovereignty, the Alice Recoque system will integrate various European technologies, including some critical components. The entire system will be interconnected through the Eviden’s BXIv3 networking technology, an efficient European alternative for interconnecting converged HPC/AI systems.
On top of the Exascale system, an additional partition will integrate European SiPearl Rhea2 CPU to increase the system computation capacities.
With nearly three-quarters of the production of the BullSequana XH3500 components relocated to Europe, Eviden ensures full traceability, regulatory compliance, and reduced geopolitical risks – aligning with Europe’s climate goals and reinforcing digital sovereignty through secure, sustainable, and high-performance AI-HPC technologies.
Exceptional memory performance
Composed of 94 racks, Alice Recoque is expected to be one of the top supercomputers in Europe for double-precision HPC workloads. Building on this foundation, it will also offer exceptional memory performance enabling deeper insights, faster simulations, and more scientific breakthroughs.
To achieve these capabilities, Alice Recoque will encompass future-ready, modular and scalable components into Eviden’s recently unveiled BullSequana XH3500 architecture to address the growing demands of HPC, AI and quantum computing.
With 25% less racks and components than other Exascale systems and up to 50% better energy efficiency per GPU, Eviden’s architecture will enable Alice Recoque to deliver maximum performance at minimum cost and power, to meet Europe’s demanding green computing goals.
Powered by AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs
Powered by AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs, Alice Recoque supports advanced AI data types, including FP4 and FP8, providing leadership AI FLOPs. Each GPU integrates 432 GB of HBM4 memory and 19.6 TB/s of bandwidth which will enable Alice Recoque to deliver leadership capacity and throughput per GPU.
To enable the AMD Instinct GPUs to operate at full capacity and to boost distributed communication efficiency, the Alice Recoque system will be connected through Eviden’s in-house interconnect technology, BXIv3. Guarantee of sovereignty, this European network solution will seamlessly connect all components of the system, delivering faster application performance and optimised resource utilisation.
Eviden’s integrated hardware and smart software
Eviden’s integrated hardware and smart software will deliver pioneering computing power with improved application workload energy efficiency, which is expected to reach about 20%, compared to equivalent exascale systems, a major step towards frugal AI.
Real-time monitoring and energy optimisation are enabled by Eviden’s Argos intelligent software, while its unique 5th generation Direct Liquid Cooling technology uses warm water to cool 100% of all-in-one rack components, delivering efficiency and sustainability at scale.
Key figures:
- Overall project cost of 554 million euros over 5 years
- Peak performance of 1 exaflop (i.e. 1 billion calculations) per second for double precision workloads The equivalent of more calculations than humanity could accomplish in four years of relentless mental computation
- The equivalent of 10 million modern desktop computers
- Increase by 50 in CEA’s supercomputing centre (TGCC) computing capacity, while only multiplying by 5 the electrical power
- 94 racks, 280km of cabling, 280 tons over 174 square meters (racks + services + cabling) Weight equivalent to 140 electrical vehicles or 28 city buses
- 25% less racks and components than other Exascale systems
- Reduced energy consumption: Improved application workload energy efficiency, expected to reach about 20%, compared to equivalent exascale systems,
- Up to 50% better energy efficiency per GPU, compared to existing exascale system
- 100% of the rack components cooled with warm water
Comments
Philippe Baptiste, French Minister for Higher Education, Research and Space:
“The selection of Eviden to build Alice Recoque, Europe’s new exascale supercomputer, is a major step forward for France and Europe. This project embodies our shared ambition in the field of high-performance computing, AI, and quantum technologies, while reinforcing our technological leadership.”
“Hosted at CEA’s TGCC, Alice Recoque will empower researchers and industries to address critical challenges—from climate modelling to healthcare innovation. It is a cornerstone for what we will achieve together, for science, progress, and the French and European digital future.”
Anne Le Hénanff, French Minister of State for AI and Digital Affairs:
“On the occasion of the Summit on Digital Sovereignty on the 18th of November, we reaffirm with other European member states our ambition: to strengthen our European digital champions. The selection of Eviden to equip the Alice Recoque supercomputer is a concrete example of Europe acting collectively to make digital sovereignty a reality.”
“Alice Recoque will become a key pillar for the future of quantum computing and artificial intelligence. It is a source of pride to see French companies play a central role in this advancement.”
Dimitris Papastergiou, Minister of Digital Governance of Greece:
“Europe’s experience shows that technological sovereignty is achieved through cooperation and long-term vision. Greece’s participation in the Alice Recoque supercomputer project reflects our commitment to a strong, competitive European tech ecosystem and aligns with our National AI Strategy implemented under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.”
“Alice Recoque opens new opportunities for collaboration and innovation, giving Greek startups, researchers, and academic institutions access to cutting-edge tools and positioning Greece at the forefront of global AI developments.”
Anders Jensen, EuroHPC JU Executive Director:
“As Europe has officially entered the exascale era, I am delighted to soon welcome Alice Recoque to our EuroHPC fleet. This groundbreaking exascale supercomputer, powered by pioneering European technologies, will elevate scientific discovery, industrial innovation, and technological sovereignty to the next level, while ensuring exceptional energy efficiency.”
Philippe Lavocat, CEO of GENCI:
“In the global race to harness computing power as the engine of scientific discovery and innovation, EuroHPC’s decision to select Eviden and embrace sovereign technologies for the Alice Recoque Exascale supercomputer marks a defining milestone for Europe and France.”
“Building on a collaborative journey that began three years ago, GENCI and all members of the Jules Verne consortium are extremely proud in their pivotal role in bringing this groundbreaking Exascale system to life—a true game changer for research and industry.”
“By paving the path toward post-Exascale services, Alice Recoque will propel Europe “Beyond HPC,” federating high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies to empower science, accelerate innovation, and strengthen our technological sovereignty and global competitiveness.”
Anne-Isabelle Etienvre, General Administrator of the CEA:
“As a key player in supercomputing, CEA and its teams are ready, eager and proud to host and operate the Alice Recoque exascale supercomputer at TGCC. This is a strong recognition of our expertise in building major research infrastructures and of our teams skills throughout the value chain.”
“The CEA welcomes EuroHPC's selection of a machine integrating numerous European technological and software components for this project, including Eviden's BXI network and SiPearl's Rhea2 processor, which have long been supported by the CEA.”
“We congratulate Eviden on winning the tender for this new European Flagship for research. Europe is thereby demonstrating its unity and reaffirming its leadership in the field of HPC and AI, a strategy that is in line with the CEA's vision.”
Valeriu Codreanu, manager Compute Services at SURF:
“We are proud to be part of this extraordinary project. Alice Recoque will not only help our scientist with access to cutting edge compute power, but will also strengthen the European sovereignty.”
Emmanuel Le Roux, Group SVP, global head of Advanced Computing and AI, Eviden at Atos Group:
“Alice Recoque represents another critical step toward Europe’s digital future, defined by a sovereignty, sustainability and scientific excellence. As a catalyst for scientific and industrial breakthroughs, from climate modelling and healthcare to advanced materials and AI innovation, it will empower researchers and industries across Europe.”
“Born from a shared European vision, this AI Factory reflects on what we can achieve collectively toward a common goal. Eviden is fully dedicated to its success, bringing deep expertise, a collaborative spirit, and a long-term dedication to responsible technological leadership.”
Dan McNamara, senior vice president, Compute & Enterprise AI, AMD:
"We are committed to enabling the next generation of innovation across AI and HPC. The Alice Recoque supercomputer represents a major step forward for European sovereign AI, uniting national ambition, regional collaboration, and AMD’s high-performance and AI compute technologies.”
“Through our continued collaboration with EuroHPC JU, the Jules Verne Consortium, and Eviden, we are proud to support Europe’s scientific and industrial leadership with a platform purpose-built for scale, efficiency and discovery.”
Philippe Notton, CEO and founder of SiPearl:
“With the Alice Recoque supercomputer, we are taking a major step forward in our mission to provide sovereign microprocessor technologies to the European AI and HPC ecosystem through our cooperation with our strategic partner Eviden.”
Paul Bloch, President & Co-Founder, DDN:
“DDN is privileged to support the Alice Recoque Exascale supercomputer with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, GENCI, CEA, Surf, GRNET and Eviden. This deployment reinforces DDN’s leadership in data-intelligence infrastructure for advanced HPC and AI.”
“By delivering extreme performance, efficiency and data insight at massive scale, we help accelerate discovery, strengthen European competitiveness to tackle high-impact challenges.”
