Hewlett Packard Enterprise Strengthens Europe’s Supercomputer Supply Chain with New Factory in Czech Republic

By: Hewlett Packard Enterprise via Business Wire

May 18, 2022 at 08:00 AM EDT

HPE builds on its significant investments in Europe with new facility to support the region’s supercomputing mission by manufacturing exascale-class high performance computing and at-scale artificial intelligence systems

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced its ongoing commitment in Europe by building its first factory in the region for next-generation high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems to accelerate delivery to customers and strengthen the region’s supplier ecosystem. The new site will manufacture HPE’s industry-leading systems as custom-designed solutions to advance scientific research, mature AL/ML initiatives, and bolster innovation.

The dedicated HPC factory, which will become the fourth of HPE’s global HPC manufacturing sites, will be located in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, next to HPE’s existing European site for manufacturing its industry-standard servers and storage solutions. Operations will begin in summer 2022.

“When European organizations adopt next-generation supercomputing, they gain a powerful foundation to seize opportunities of exponential data growth to accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen digital sovereignty and unlock innovations to deliver greater economic value,” said Justin Hotard, executive vice president and general manager, HPC & AI, at HPE. “HPE is committed to continue supporting Europe in this endeavor and our new HPC factory in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, is another significant investment, among our other R&D initiatives, that we have made in Europe. We are now able to manufacture the industry’s leading supercomputing, HPC, and AI systems, while increasing supply chain viability and resiliency.”

HPE commits to advancing Europe’s leadership in supercomputing and AI to speed time-to-insight

HPE has an extensive HPC and AI footprint in Europe that is centered on advancing national initiatives to drive time-to-insight in complex scientific research that is critical to solving challenging world problems such as predicting and preparing for extreme weather events, diagnosing and treating diseases, and improving food security and sustainability. Gaining access to next-generation, data-driven technologies that unlock invaluable insights and capabilities for AI innovation, is also imperative for Europe in achieving digital sovereignty.

HPE has strong collaborations in Europe, including the European HPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), an initiative between the EU, European countries and industry technology partners to coordinate and combine their resources to develop world-class pre-exascale and exascale supercomputers in Europe. Through the EuroHPC JU, HPE has already designed and built the LUMI supercomputer for CSC – IT Center for Science in Finland, which is considered a “pre-exascale” supercomputer, and the Karolina supercomputer for IT4Innovations in Czech Republic.

Additionally, HPE is committed to supporting local European initiatives in HPC and AI, and has invested in R&D initiatives such as its Center of Excellence in Grenoble, France, which is open to a broader community of scientists, researchers and engineers to test and build next-generation solutions. HPE is also building on its efforts in support of France’s “AI for Humanity” program, announced in March 2018 by President of France, Emmanuel Macron, to advance industries with AI and boost economic growth. HPE has expanded its AI partnerships in France with the upcoming Adastra supercomputer for GENCI-CINES, the Jean Zay supercomputer for GENCI and a supercomputer for Maison de l'Intelligence Artificielle.

These ongoing developments propel European organizations’ path to capitalize on exponential data growth by advancing their ability to create value from data, tap into huge distributed data pools, and strengthen their sovereignty over their data-driven model.

European customers gain local site for HPC and AI solutions to support any data demand

The new site will manufacture and ship two main product lines, the HPE Apollo systems, ideal for demanding HPC and AI applications, and AI modeling and training, and the HPE Cray EX supercomputers, designed to support next-generation, high-end supercomputing to deliver unprecedented performance to tackle the world’s challenging scientific and AI tasks.

The two product lines each deliver end-to-end HPC and AI capabilities spanning compute, accelerated compute, software, networking, storage and liquid-cooled capabilities.

The factory is also designed to meet specific manufacturing requirements of HPE’s liquid-cooled HPC and AI systems, which are ideal cooling options for performance-intensive systems. To support this capability, the factory features a floor reinforced to withstand the weight of HPE Cray EX supercomputers, which are up to 8,000 pounds (3,628 kilograms) per cabinet, and includes a water circuit between the supercomputers and the roof of the building to help cool down hot water.

HPE continues trusted partnership with Foxconn to support new factory’s operations

HPE’s long-standing manufacturing service partner, Foxconn, will support the site’s product manufacturing and shipping to fulfill HPE’s customers’ orders in Europe as it currently does for HPE’s main site in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic.

To learn more about HPE’s portfolio of HPC and AI solutions and how it is used across various industries, in support of a range of workloads, please visit: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/compute/hpc

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) is the global edge-to-cloud company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way people live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent technology solutions as a service. With offerings spanning Cloud Services, Compute, High Performance Computing & AI, Intelligent Edge, Software, and Storage, HPE provides a consistent experience across all clouds and edges, helping customers develop new business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com