GÉANT has been awarded a contract by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (JU) to deliver high-capacity, secure, pan-European connectivity for Europe’s supercomputing infrastructure. This hyperconnected network will connect HPC centres, national supercomputers, AI factories, quantum facilities, and research and data centres across the continent, enabling seamless collaboration for researchers, industry, and the public sector.
By leveraging decades of expertise and the reach of Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), GÉANT is creating a foundation that goes beyond simple connectivity. This infrastructure will allow scientists, innovators, and public institutions to tackle complex challenges collaboratively, accelerate discoveries, and explore entirely new avenues of research and innovation. It is a transformative step that strengthens Europe’s digital sovereignty while ensuring that the benefits of HPC are accessible to the entire research and education community.
CONNECT interviewed Lise Fuhr, GÉANT CEO, Paul Rouse, GÉANT Chief Relations Officer, Bram Peeters, GÉANT Chief Network Services Officer, Ronan Byrne, HEAnet CEO and member of the GÉANT Board, and Veronika Di Luna, GÉANT EuroHPC Bid Coordinator. They tell us more about how GÉANT and its NRENs are linking Europe’s HPC centres and empowering the next wave of research, innovation, and collaboration.
This agreement matters because GÉANT and its members form a truly European network, built to the highest standards and designed to deliver reliably under the most demanding conditions. Unlike commercial providers, our model prioritises resilience, scalability, and proactive expansion to stay ahead of demand. What makes it unique is that it is purpose-driven, not profit-driven: connecting Europe’s leading universities, research centres, and HPC sites, all the way to the most remote regions. The capillarity of the GÉANT network also creates a multiplier effect for Europe’s digital research ecosystem that is unmatched globally.
By combining deep national presence with coordinated European reach, GÉANT provides a strategic advantage. This makes hyperconnectivity a vital foundation for Europe’s HPC ambitions and for strengthening our digital sovereignty and competitiveness.
Looking ahead to 2029, what does success look like for the EuroHPC JU, GÉANT and the NRENs once this project is complete?
By 2029, success will mean that Europe’s supercomputing capabilities have been strengthened and are fully serving the research and education communities across the continent. The measure of success is not the connectivity itself, but what it enables: breakthroughs in science, innovation, and knowledge that ultimately benefit all European citizens.
Connectivity becomes powerful only when it facilitates use. If we can ensure that researchers everywhere can access and exploit these resources, we amplify Europe’s capacity for discovery and innovation. That is the real impact.
This vision depends on strong partnership: GÉANT, the NRENs, the EuroHPC JU, and the European Commission working together in a trusted community. Each part plays a role – continental reach, national delivery, and local last-mile connections. Together, that collaboration will define Europe’s digital sovereignty and ensure that HPC investments translate into lasting competitiveness and knowledge for all.
GÉANT and its member NRENs are uniquely positioned to take on this challenge because they bring decades of experience in delivering high-capacity, pan-European connectivity dedicated to research and education. Built on sustained investment and trusted partnerships, the network combines continental reach with national strengths, ensuring agile delivery and maximum return on public funding.
Our sustained success is rooted in the collective strength of our member association of European NRENs, which enables us to operate seamlessly across European borders with a shared vision of enabling greater pan-European impact with superior research outcomes. Our new partnership with the EuroHPC JU presents another such opportunity: we will aggregate our expertise to position Europe at the forefront of high-performance computing, enabling greater collaborative innovation and necessary technological advancement.
This partnership between the EuroHPC JU, GÉANT and the NRENs is quite unique. How will it strengthen NRENs’ efforts and ambitions at national level?
This partnership is unique because it enables a dedicated, integrated HPC network across the breadth of Europe. GÉANT is an exemplar connectivity partner, building on its member NRENs’ long-standing relationships with national HPC centres, to enable this ambition.
It continues the essential investment in Europe’s digital infrastructure, underpinning our collective AI efforts over the next decade, and supporting AI factories and AI antennas across Europe. Future innovations and start-ups will flow from this, which will benefit Europe as a collective, but it will also bring benefits at an individual NREN country level.
The pan-European scale of the EuroHPC JU design will better enable Member States to identify start-up business opportunities, empower greater technological innovation and leverage world-class computing capacity in line with local priorities as well as increasing international collaborations.
Connecting HPC centres is not something new for GÉANT and its NREN members, but this partnership places HPC provision on a higher and concerted scale. With high-capacity, cross-border connectivity, it will also foster greater open science, seamless collaboration and a truly joined-up pan-European HPC platform, where borders are not impediments to international collaboration, facilitating greater innovation and technological breakthroughs.
What makes this agreement particularly significant is its horizon. Most grants we receive are around two and a half years, while this is a longer-term service contract. That gives us predictability, the ability to plan and invest with confidence, and a strong foundation for sustainable delivery of critical infrastructure, connecting the R&E community to supercomputing across Europe. It also marks a shift to a pay-for-service model. We’ve been able to adapt to this fairly quickly, and it means GÉANT is now running two models in parallel: the traditional grant-based funding and service-based contracts. That dual approach strengthens our long-term sustainability and shows we can deliver world-class services under different models.
GÉANT does not deliver in isolation here and with over 30 years’ experience in collaboration with our member NRENs we have been preparing for introducing such changes upon our strong foundations of co-delivery.
How will researchers, industry, and the public sector benefit from this hyperconnected infrastructure? Can you share some examples of the kinds of breakthroughs it could accelerate?
By connecting researchers, educators, and innovators across Europe, GÉANT’s network doesn’t just move data – it brings people together to solve the most complex scientific, industrial, and societal challenges. Its fast, reliable, and high-capacity infrastructure opens the door to entirely new types of collaboration and experimentation, accelerating breakthroughs that were previously impossible due to data or connectivity limitations.
The true power of this infrastructure lies in how it can transform lives. In the medical field, for instance, the EuroHPC JU supercomputers are already helping to give a voice to people who cannot speak, enabling them to communicate more quickly and comfortably with their loved ones. Advanced AI models for neuroimaging are also allowing doctors to detect intellectual disabilities and Alzheimer’s in people with Down’s Syndrome much earlier than ever before, offering new hope for patients and families. In climate science, researchers are developing tools that transform vast collections of unstructured papers into searchable, visual insights, helping journalists and writers access clear, science-based information for their work.
As this infrastructure becomes hyperconnected, it will unlock solutions to even more complex challenges and support the seamless transfer of ever larger volumes of data.
The GÉANT network is uniquely suited to this challenge. Thanks to major investments such as those within the GÉANT GN4-3N project, we already have the fibre infrastructure, capacity, and flexibility in place to meet the demands of HPC at scale. Our federated model, working hand in hand with our NREN members’ networks, allows us to deliver Europe’s first truly end-to-end infrastructure of this size. This means HPC centres and data facilities across the continent can be connected seamlessly, giving researchers unconstrained, high-quality access to resources. With a combination of expertise and skills unavailable elsewhere in Europe, GÉANT and the European NRENs are ideally positioned to provide the reliability and reach needed for the EuroHPC JU’s critical mission.
What impact will this infrastructure have on the European HPC ecosystem, and what challenges will need to be overcome?
The reach of the GÉANT network means that smaller HPC centres and new players can be integrated smoothly into the wider hyperconnectivity ecosystem, broadening access and strengthening Europe’s collaborative research capacity. Users across Europe will benefit from high-quality, secure connectivity to all HPC centres and data resources – something that is only possible on a network of this scale. The challenges lie in coordinating end-to-end services and processes across many stakeholders, while managing timing, complexity, monitoring and reporting requirements. These are demanding tasks, but with strong focus and partnership, they can be addressed, delivering real value for Europe’s research and innovation.
GÉANT, together with CSC, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, University of Tartu, Ghent University and NORDUnet, is also implementing the EuroHPC Federation Platform. This secure and federated platform is designed to cater for the European public and private users, providing them with a single access point to current EuroHPC supercomputing resources and, in the future, to EuroHPC AI factories and quantum computers. Read more about it here.
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