Through IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, the Czech Republic will gain access to LUMI-AI, a new European supercomputing infrastructure. LUMI-AI will offer approximately a tenfold increase in artificial intelligence performance and nearly double the traditional scientific computing performance of the current LUMI supercomputer. Serving researchers, companies, and startups, the new system will become a key pillar of Europe's AI development infrastructure. The Czech Republic is contributing EUR 7.37 million towards its acquisition through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has signed a contract to procure the LUMI-AI supercomputer, which will be installed at the CSC data centre in Kajaani, Finland. Its deployment is scheduled for the second half of 2027. LUMI-AI will be owned by EuroHPC JU and operated by the LUMI AI Factory consortium, which includes Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Czech involvement is secured by IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. The total contract value – covering acquisition, delivery, installation, and services – amounts to EUR 387.8 million. Half of the costs are funded by EuroHPC JU, with the other half coming from the member countries of the LUMI AI Factory consortium. The Czech Republic's contribution of EUR 7,370,000 is provided through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
“The Czech Republic has been involved in LUMI AI Factory since last year, granting us access to the LUMI-AI supercomputer, which will represent the pinnacle of European AI infrastructure. For Czech research, businesses, startups, and public institutions, this means the opportunity to work with computing power capable of training and running the most advanced AI models. It is also an important step towards strengthening European technological sovereignty and competitiveness in AI,” says Vít Vondrák, Managing Director of IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center.
LUMI-AI will serve as the computational backbone of LUMI AI Factory, supporting both AI-driven industrial innovation and academic research. The system will be designed for a wide array of workloads – from training and executing large-scale AI models to computationally intensive scientific simulations.
"With the signature of the LUMI-AI contract, EuroHPC JU has concluded its sixth procurement for a new generation of AI-optimised supercomputers under the AI Factories initiative. Together, these systems will establish a powerful European AI infrastructure ecosystem that enables SMEs and startups to access world-class supercomputing capacity, fully harness the potential of artificial intelligence, and drive innovation, economic growth, and Europe's technological leadership," states Anders Jensen, Executive Director of EuroHPC JU.
Tenfold Performance Increase for Artificial Intelligence
LUMI-AI will be built on the BullSequana XH3500 architecture and equipped with next-generation AMD Instinct™ MI430X GPUs alongside 256-core 6th-generation AMD EPYC™ processors. The system vendor is Bull. Additional technology partners include IBM, which provides storage infrastructure based on Storage Scale technology, and Nokia, which supplies network communication infrastructure built on Bull’s BXI OS.
The new GPU architectures deliver a substantial boost in performance, particularly for AI-driven workloads. Consequently, LUMI-AI is set to offer roughly ten times the AI capability of the existing LUMI supercomputer. Meanwhile, performance for traditional high-performance computing, such as large scientific simulations, will nearly double.
The system will be supplemented by additional computational and storage resources. Its architecture is designed to securely serve diverse user groups, and an extensive API suite will facilitate seamless integration into modern AI application development and deployment environments.
A Supercomputer and a Quantum Computer Integration
A major highlight of the new infrastructure is the direct interconnection between LUMI-AI and the LUMI-IQ quantum computer, supplied by IQM Quantum Computers. Co-located in the same data centre, the two systems will be tightly integrated to form an advanced hybrid computing platform combining HPC, AI, and quantum computing. IT4Innovations' research team will actively participate in developing this hybrid computing environment, drawing on its experience in integrating classical supercomputing and quantum technologies. Within a single environment, researchers will be able to combine classical numerical simulations, machine learning, and quantum algorithms. This integrated approach opens up new avenues in areas such as drug and materials design, climate research, and other domains where current computational power remains a bottleneck.
High Performance with Energy Efficiency at Its Core
Like its predecessor, the new system places a strong emphasis on energy efficiency. LUMI-AI will utilise direct liquid cooling, and the waste heat generated during operation will be captured to feed the district heating network of the city of Kajaani. Powered by 100% renewable energy, this combination of modern cooling, waste heat reuse, and green energy aims to make LUMI-AI one of the most energy- and environmentally efficient supercomputers of its generation.