EuroHPC has signed a €387.8 million contract with Bull to deliver LUMI-AI in Kajaani, Finland, selecting AMD accelerators and processors for a new European supercomputer expected to reach users in 2027.
The August 31 award covers acquisition, delivery, installation and maintenance. EuroHPC and the six-country LUMI AI Factory consortium will each fund half. CSC, the Finnish hosting organization, places deployment in the second half of 2027.
The procurement moves the project from vendor selection toward delivery. It does not mean the new machine is operational: the current LUMI system continues to underpin the AI Factory’s services while the next-generation installation is prepared.
AMD Compute, Bull Platform and Shared Access
EuroHPC identifies AMD Instinct MI430X GPUs and sixth-generation EPYC processors with 256 cores as the compute foundation. The system is intended for AI workflows as well as large scientific simulations and data-intensive research.
CSC says the machine will use BullSequana XH3500, with IBM Storage Scale-based storage and networking involving Nokia and Bull’s BXI technology. The architecture is designed to serve multiple tenants and provide API-based access, extending its role beyond conventional batch supercomputing.
The announced target is ten times the AI capacity of the existing LUMI and nearly twice its HPC capability. These are expected improvements, not published acceptance-test results. They should not be read as a guarantee that every model or simulation will run ten times faster.
Access is aimed primarily at startups and smaller businesses undertaking research and innovation, alongside the wider research community. The hosting consortium includes Finland, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Norway and Poland; resources will be allocated jointly with EuroHPC in line with their investments.
The Building Has Its Own Commissioning Schedule
A September 3 construction update adds a physical milestone: the Kajaani facility has reached its topping-out ceremony. CSC is converting an approximately 200-metre former paper-machine hall to house LUMI-AI and the experimental LUMI-IQ quantum computer.
The building project began in January 2026. CSC says a six-month testing and commissioning phase for building systems will start in early 2027, with the data center scheduled to begin operations at the end of that year. Around 3.5 kilometres of welded liquid-cooling pipework are planned.
That timetable distinguishes hardware deployment from a ready-to-operate facility. Power, cooling and integrated building systems must be tested before the new compute capacity can support users reliably.
Delivery and User Access Are the Next Milestones
For infrastructure teams, the award fixes the supplier, processor family and funding framework. The remaining milestones are installation, commissioning and usable allocations. The contract value is not a chip-only purchase price, and the projected capacity uplift is not capacity available today.
The project’s next meaningful update will be evidence that the hardware and facility schedules have converged, followed by details of when users can run production workloads on the new system.
