JAIF: German AI infrastructure for start-ups, industry and researchers

Europe does not want to be left behind in the field of AI and does not want to become dependent on companies from the USA. This is why there is an action plan for the AI continent. This includes the establishment of AI factories. One of these is being built in Jülich for around 55 million euros. The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, took a look at the construction progress: Container after container full of GPU accelerators from Nvidia and cables.

The Jülich AI factory is called JAIF – Jupiter AI Factory. Jupiter is the exascale supercomputer at Forschungszentrum Jülich to which the AI factory will be attached. Jupiter stands for Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research. The supercomputer already consists of the two modules Cluster and Booster and is to be expanded to include a cloud platform for inference applications – which will then be called Jarvis (Jupiter Advanced Research Vehicle for Inference Services). This means that AI models are trained in the Booster module, which consists of 24,000 Nvidia GH200s. Because AI algorithms get by with simple data formats such as FP8 and INT8, the system achieves a high performance of 40 trillion computing operations per second (40 exaflops). Inference, i.e. the processing of queries to the AI as well as downstream processes such as fine-tuning, then run via Jarvis.

Simplification for tech regulation

Henna Virkkunen is allowed to visit the cabinets full of chips during a tour wearing a helmet and high-visibility vest. Everything is still under construction; the system should be ready for acceptance in the coming weeks. However, it is still unclear when it will actually open. However, Virkkunen is already offering her congratulations: it is the first European AI factory to be powered by an exascale computer – "one of the most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputers in the world." She is certain that Europe can keep up with AI. There is a very strong traditional industry; we just have to make sure that we combine it with new technologies.

For example, the OpenGPT-X Teuken-7B research project has already trained on Jupiter. It is a large European language model that understands local languages particularly well. Virkkunen is not the only one who believes in Europe; those responsible at Forschungszentrum Jülich, where Jupiter and its J offshoots are located, also see great opportunities. They have the talent and the technology, and with better data they can also develop better models and applications than the large corporations from the USA with their huge amounts of data.

However, to ensure that they do not have an advantage for reasons of regulation and bureaucracy, European laws are to be simplified. This includes the AI Act. The regulation on AI regulation has not yet been fully implemented and is already to be adapted. In addition, new bodies are to help with implementation and compliance. But the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will not be spared either, Virkkunen confirms what observers have suspected for several weeks. Overlapping laws are to be adapted. High-quality data must also be made secure and usable in a meaningful way.

Not enough capacity for everyone

JAIF is intended to strengthen research and industry in strategically important fields of AI application, according to a press release. These include the areas of health, energy, climate change, education, media, the public sector and finance. The only question is who gets access to the computing power and how. When asked, the question has come up several times. However, it has apparently not yet been answered conclusively. In any case, the research center will also offer training and appropriate advice. It will be financed from public and private funds.

A total of 13 AI factories are planned across Europe, including a second German system, HammerHai, at the HLRS in Stuttgart. They are all intended to form a coherent network. "AI needs speed, and we are proud that Jupiter is being set up at lightning speed and calculates at lightning speed," says Kobus Kuipers, member of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich. JAIF will be an "open innovation ecosystem for AI that combines scientific excellence, economic value creation and social benefit". The fact that the network is set to grow even larger was mentioned several times during the tour.

JAIF is managed and organized by various institutions. In addition to the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), the following are involved: the AI Center at RWTH Aachen University, the Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Information Technology (FIT) and for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) as well as the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI), the AI service centers WestAI, hessian.AISC, the Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (LAMARR) and the German AI Association.

(emw)