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France Selects AMD and Eviden to Build 'Alice Recoque,' Europe’s Second Exascale Supercomputer

Backed by EuroHPC and the Jules Verne consortium, the TGCC‑hosted system is cast as an energy‑efficient AI‑HPC factory that builds European technological sovereignty.

Overview

  • Led by GENCI and operated by CEA at the Très Grand Centre de Calcul in France, Alice Recoque is designed to exceed one exaflop for double‑precision scientific workloads.
  • The hybrid architecture pairs next‑generation AMD EPYC “Venice” CPUs, Instinct MI430X GPUs and AMD FPGAs with Eviden’s BXI interconnect on the BullSequana XH3500 platform, plus a SiPearl Rhea2 CPU partition and DDN storage.
  • Vendors describe a compact, liquid‑cooled system of 94 racks with Argos energy monitoring, claiming 25% fewer racks than other exascale systems and up to 50% better energy efficiency per GPU.
  • Funding comes from the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, using Digital Europe Programme resources, and from the Jules Verne consortium led by France with participation from the Netherlands’ SURF and Greece’s GRNET.
  • Official materials report differing total cost figures of €544 million and €554 million over five years, and Eviden says production of most BullSequana XH3500 components will be relocated to Europe for traceability.