Eviden set to build France’s first exascale supercomputer with AMD at the wheel

Steven

Eviden set to build France’s first exascale supercomputer with AMD at the wheel

Summary

Eviden, an Atos subsidiary, will build Alice Recoque — France’s first exascale supercomputer — funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking at a cost of €544 million. The modular system will launch with AMD’s upcoming “Venice” EPYC CPUs and Instinct MI430X GPUs, plus AMD FPGAs, and will be housed at GENCI in Paris across 94 racks of BullSequana XH3500 hardware enhanced with fanless direct liquid cooling.

The system uses Eviden’s BullSequana eXascale Interconnect (BXI) v3 (switches to 800 Gbps, adapters 400 Gbps) and DDN storage. An initial accelerator partition is expected by late 2026 (subject to AMD chip availability), while a general-purpose CPU partition based on SiPearl’s Rhea2 and BXI networking is planned for 2027.

Eviden says Alice Recoque will run average workloads at around 12 megawatts and has been “designed as an AI Factory,” though it will also support traditional HPC workloads such as simulation and modelling.

Key Points

  • EuroHPC is funding the €544 million Alice Recoque exascale system to boost European research capacity in simulation, data analysis and AI.
  • The system will initially use AMD “Venice” EPYC CPUs and Instinct MI430X GPUs, plus AMD FPGAs for the accelerator partition.
  • Alice Recoque will sit at GENCI in Paris and consists of 94 racks of BullSequana XH3500 hardware with fanless direct liquid cooling to support higher density and heat loads.
  • Networking is via Eviden’s BullSequana eXascale Interconnect (BXI) v3 — switches up to 800 Gbps (adapters 400 Gbps) — and DDN storage appliances.
  • Initial accelerator partition expected by late 2026 (AMD chip availability permitting); a general-purpose SiPearl Rhea2 CPU partition is slated for 2027.
  • Eviden claims an average-power envelope of about 12 megawatts, positioning the system as comparatively energy-efficient for an exascale-class machine.
  • The project is Europe’s second exascale system following Jupiter and highlights a mixed-architecture approach rather than a GPU-only “AI factory”.
  • Alice Recoque is designed to handle both AI lifecycles and traditional HPC workloads, reflecting a hybrid usage model.

Why should I read this?

Because it matters — France is finally getting an exascale box and AMD is front-and-centre. If you care about where European AI and HPC power lives (and who builds it), this story saves you the time of wading through specs: big budget, AMD silicon, clever cooling and lower power draw. Read the details if you want the scoop without the slog.

Context and relevance

Alice Recoque is a strategic win for European compute independence and research capability: it follows Jupiter as Europe’s second exascale system and shows a trend toward mixed architectures (CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs) and greater energy efficiency. The project ties into broader industry moves — competition between AMD and Nvidia in high-end AI/HPC, the emergence of SiPearl CPUs in European stacks, and investment by pan-European bodies like EuroHPC to keep compute capability on the continent.

For researchers, datacentre planners and policy makers, the machine signals where funding and technical priorities are heading: denser hardware, advanced cooling, high-bandwidth interconnects, and hybrid AI/HPC workloads.

Source

Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/11/18/eviden_france_exascale/