Delivering Europe’s Digital Sovereignty: AI, HPC and Quantum Computing

Anders Jensen, executive director of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, reviews how the JU is advancing Europe's digital sovereignty across HPC, AI, and quantum computing. He explains the JU's evolving mandate, now expanded three times, with a budget grown to roughly eight billion euros through matched member-state funding, and two new pillars added: quantum technologies beyond computing (including sensing and communications) and AI gigafactories. Jensen recaps the infrastructure buildout, with Europe reaching exascale via JUPITER and the Alice Recoque system to follow with a stronger European technology footprint, alongside pre-exascale, mid-range, and petascale machines, noting that early systems are approaching end of life. A federation platform now provides common login and unified access across hosting centers, complemented by network upgrades with GEANT. He describes the 19 selected AI factories, 16 with new machines, each building domain-specific competence and offering simplified, fast access for non-traditional users, while classical HPC access continues through PRACE-inspired peer review that remains heavily oversubscribed. On gigafactories, a call was planned for mid-July, targeting industry-led consortia building European-controlled AI facilities at three to four times JUPITER's capacity, operated as sustainable businesses with the JU as a guaranteed anchor customer rather than infrastructure owner. The talk closes with breaking news: access to the EuroHPC quantum computers, six inaugurated with two more coming across different qubit technologies, is now open to applicants from all of Europe through the JU's website.