EU Orders AI Supercomputer in €387.8 Million Deal
Brussels awards its largest EuroHPC contract yet to French state-owned Bull AI, with the machine due to run in Finland from the second half of 2027.
Illustration: a coolly lit computing hall lined with dark server cabinets, a snow-covered pine forest visible through the window at dusk.
The EU has ordered a 387.8 million euro AI supercomputer from French state-owned Bull AI, to be installed in an existing data center in Finland and brought online in the second half of 2027.
At a glance
- Contract value: 387.8 million euros, reported as the largest single order placed so far by the EU supercomputing body EuroHPC.
- Contractor: Bull AI, a French state-owned company that grew out of a division of the IT group Atos.
- Site: an existing data center in Finland; neither report names the exact location.
- Timeline: operation expected to begin in the second half of 2027.
- Installed base: 19 AI data centers and around a dozen supercomputers under EuroHPC, including Jupiter in Jülich, Germany.
The European Union has placed its largest AI computing order to date: French state-owned Bull AI will build a high-performance system in Finland under a contract worth 387.8 million euros. The award comes from EuroHPC, the bloc's supercomputing body. The machine is expected to start operating in the second half of 2027.
What the contract covers
The system will not be built on a greenfield site. It goes into a data center that already exists in Finland. Neither Handelsblatt nor WirtschaftsWoche gives a peak performance figure or a name for the machine, and neither identifies the specific Finnish site or the operator of the facility.
Why the contractor matters
Bull AI is state-owned and emerged from a division of the IT group Atos. Keeping the order with a European vendor is consistent with the EU's broader push to build compute capacity on the continent. How the 387.8 million euros splits between hardware, installation and later operation is not stated in either report.
The network it joins
According to the reports, EuroHPC has set up 19 AI data centers so far and runs roughly a dozen supercomputers. Jupiter, at the Jülich research center in Germany, is among the best known. The network is set to expand further in the coming years because demand for compute time outstrips what is available.
What the compute is for
Evangelos Floros, who heads infrastructure at EuroHPC, frames the purpose of the funded systems this way:
Systems funded by EuroHPC are used, among other things, to train European AI.
Neither source says how much of the new machine's capacity will be reserved for AI training, or under what allocation rules researchers and companies will get access.
Open questions
Four things are unresolved in the available reporting: compute performance, the system's name, the exact site, and how the funding is split. A specific petaflops figure attached to this order does not come from these two reports. What is solid so far is the contract value, the contractor, the country and the rough schedule.
FAQ
How much is the EU paying for the new AI supercomputer?
The contract is worth 387.8 million euros, described in the reports as the largest single order EuroHPC has placed to date.
Where will the new EU supercomputer be located?
In an existing data center in Finland. The exact site and the facility's operator are not named in the available reports.
When will the EuroHPC machine go online?
Operation is expected in the second half of 2027. No firm date has been announced so far.
