A procurement agreement between the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and Bull will bring LUMI-AI, a cutting-edge supercomputer, to CSC's data center in Kajaani, Finland. The machine is projected to boost artificial intelligence processing power by a factor of ten and expand high-performance computing capability by nearly double compared to the existing LUMI system. At EUR 387.8 million, the contract encompasses hardware acquisition, deployment, setup, and ongoing support. The investment aims to strengthen Europe's position in AI, HPC, data-driven research, innovation, and workforce development.
LUMI-AI will function as the computational foundation of the LUMI AI Factory, backing both commercial AI development and scholarly investigation. The platform will enable advances in AI model training and deployment, alongside extensive scientific modeling at scale.
Six nations—Finland, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, and Poland—comprise the LUMI AI Factory consortium, which will host the EuroHPC JU-owned system. Installation is planned for the second half of 2027 at CSC's new facility in the Renforsin Ranta business park. EuroHPC JU and the consortium will split funding equally.
Anders Jensen, EuroHPC JU Executive Director, remarked: "With LUMI-AI, EuroHPC JU has now signed its sixth AI Factory procurement contract for a next-generation AI-optimised supercomputer. Together, these systems will form a powerful European AI infrastructure ecosystem, enabling SMEs and startups to access world-class supercomputing resources, unlock the full potential of AI, and drive innovation, growth, and technological leadership across Europe."
Kimmo Koski, Managing Director of CSC – IT Center for Science, stated: "The LUMI AI Factory consortium builds on the success of the LUMI supercomputer. I want to thank the EuroHPC JU and the consortium for the great collaboration: together we can build this world-class infrastructure for European researchers. LUMI-AI's modern capabilities combined with the LUMI-IQ quantum computer will help European researchers and industry tackle unforeseen research and innovation challenges in key fields such as health, climate and disruptive technologies."
Emmanuel Le Roux, CEO of Bull, added: "LUMI-AI marks an important milestone not only for European AI, but also for Bull, building on our established track record in delivering AI Factories and exascale systems, and further reinforcing our European leadership in developing the most energy-efficient and complex AI infrastructures. Building on decades of leadership in supercomputing, designed and manufactured in Europe, we have evolved into a trusted partner for the large-scale AI infrastructures that will help shape Europe's future AI Gigafactories. From AI platforms to sovereign computing infrastructures, our mission is more important than ever: to provide the technologies that enable innovation, competitiveness and scientific excellence, while strengthening Europe's technological autonomy. With Bull's patented water-cooling technologies and high-performance interconnect (BXI), this new project further confirms the strength of Bull's technological leadership and latest innovations. We are proud to support EuroHPC JU and the LUMI AI Factory consortium in delivering a system that will serve researchers, industries and citizens across Europe."
Top-tier technology with environmental responsibility
Bull's latest BullSequana XH3500 architecture, featuring liquid cooling, will power the system and is optimized for advanced AI applications. The infrastructure will incorporate next-generation AMD Instinct™ MI430X GPUs alongside cutting-edge 6th Gen AMD EPYC™ 256-core processors, offering adaptability across varied computational demands.
Thomas Zacharia, Senior Vice President, Global Public Sector and Strategic Partnerships at AMD, noted: "Europe's next wave of AI innovation will depend on infrastructure that is open, efficient and trusted." He continued: "LUMI-AI marks an important next step in the AMD partnership with EuroHPC JU, the LUMI AI Factory consortium and Bull. Powered by AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs and 6th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs, it will strengthen Europe's sovereign AI capacity, accelerate scientific discovery, and give researchers, startups and industry the scale and flexibility to shape Europe's AI future."
IBM will supply a sophisticated storage infrastructure based on its Storage Scale platform, while Nokia will contribute data center networking capabilities to complement Bull's BXI interconnect technology.
Newer GPU designs deliver substantially higher performance for AI-intensive operations, translating into dramatic gains in AI processing power. Conventional computing performance, by contrast, measures efficiency in handling the high-precision decimal calculations essential for scientific modeling. Consequently, architectural improvements in processors multiply AI capacity far more significantly than traditional computing performance.
The infrastructure will incorporate supplementary processing and storage elements to optimize overall capability and accessibility. A multi-tenant design stands out as a key strength, tailored to serve varied AI user communities, paired with comprehensive API-based interfaces for compatibility with contemporary development frameworks.
Koski stated: "We are proud to continue our work to support European research and innovation, competitiveness and resilience through developing digital research infrastructures and related capabilities. We want to support the European Commission in its endeavour to reinforce the 'European way' to technological sovereignty based on sustainability, human-centricity and European values."
Environmental stewardship forms a cornerstone of the initiative. LUMI-AI will harvest and repurpose waste heat for delivery into Kajaani's district heating grid, substantially raising the proportion of district heating sourced from excess heat generated by CSC's facilities. The data center construction adheres to rigorous environmental standards. Entirely powered by renewable sources, LUMI-AI will rank among the world's most efficient and environmentally conscious supercomputers.
A time for quantum computing integration
A quantum computing (QC) platform called LUMI-IQ, to be supplied by IQM Quantum Computers, will extend the LUMI-AI environment. The combination of LUMI-AI and LUMI-IQ will establish a premier hybrid computing system capable of handling workloads that merge HPC, AI, and quantum processing. Both systems will occupy the same data center and operate in close coordination.
Pekka Manninen, Director of LUMI AI Factory, explained: "This integrated approach is expected to enable new forms of scientific workloads that combine traditional simulation, machine learning, and quantum algorithms, opening new research avenues across science and industry. The new LUMI-AI system, together with the LUMI-IQ quantum computing platform will enable European research to drive academic breakthroughs and industrial RDI across Europe and thereby strengthening expertise, employment, and competitiveness across Europe in the 2030's."
