France’s premier supercomputer, Jean Zay, has received a major upgrade, boosting its computing capacity fourfold to an impressive 125.9 petaflops — or 125.9 million billion calculations per second.

To put its scale in perspective, CNRS noted: “If every human on Earth performed one calculation per second, it would still take 182 days to match what Jean Zay can do in just one second.”

Figure 1. Launched as the Successor To "Turing," Jean Zay Has Been Upgraded Multiple Times to Enhance Its Performance.

The upgrade, dubbed Jean Zay 4, also significantly expands the system’s storage capacity to 100 petabytes, reinforcing its role as a cornerstone of France’s national computing infrastructure. Figure 1 shows Launched as the Successor To "Turing," Jean Zay Has Been Upgraded Multiple Times to Enhance Its Performance.

A Game-Changer for Science and AI

This leap in performance marks Jean Zay as one of the most powerful supercomputers in France. Its capabilities are set to transform fields like artificial intelligence, biomedical research, climate modeling, and fundamental physics.

First launched in 2019, Jean Zay was designed to succeed the "Turing" supercomputer. It has since undergone multiple upgrades, with this latest enhancement announced by President Emmanuel Macron in 2023.

Open Access for Research and Innovation

The upgraded system remains freely accessible for open research, benefiting academic institutions, start-ups, and large companies across sectors.

According to CNRS, thousands of research projects will now have access to the new infrastructure to support advancements in language models, multimodal computing, autonomous vehicles, decision-making tools, agriculture, and more.

Powering the Future of European AI

One of Jean Zay’s core missions is supporting the development and deployment of advanced AI models, including generative AI and foundation models.

“This upgrade gives fresh momentum to academic and industrial research aiming to address key scientific and societal challenges through AI,” said Philippe Lavocat, CEO of GENCI, the organization behind the supercomputer.

Since 2019, AI-related projects using Jean Zay have surged from just 72 to over 1,400 in 2024, positioning it as one of Europe’s leading platforms for AI research.

Energy-Efficient Innovation

Jean Zay not only stands out for its power but also for its energy efficiency. It leverages Nvidia GPUs and an advanced warm-water cooling system developed by Eviden, making it a sustainable tool for the next generation of high-performance computing.

Reference:

1. https://interestingengineering.com/science/frances-supercomputer-gets-4x-power

Cite this article:

Keerthana S (2025), France's 'Beast' Supercomputer Quadruples Performance, Reaches 126 Petaflops, AnaTechMaz, pp.322