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The Bull factory in Angers will play a strategic role in the manufacturing of future supercomputers dedicated to artificial intelligence. The French company announced, this Wednesday, June 17, a strengthened partnership with the Taiwanese giant Foxconn to produce in Europe a new generation of high-performance computing platforms developed with NVIDIA, world leader in processors for AI.
Concretely, the first components will be manufactured in Foxconn factories in the Czech Republic before being assembled, integrated and tested in Angers. An activity which confirms the positioning of the Angevin site as an essential link in the European artificial intelligence sector.
“AI factories” in preparation
Behind this sometimes technical project lies a major challenge: providing the computing power necessary for the development of tomorrow’s artificial intelligence.
The platform called “NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72” is designed to train and operate the most advanced AI models. This equipment will notably equip future specialized data centers, sometimes called “AI Factories”, capable of processing considerable volumes of information.
Like industrial production centers, these infrastructures today produce artificial intelligence services intended for businesses, administrations and even cloud providers.
European manufacturing
For Bull and Foxconn, the objective is also to strengthen European technological sovereignty. Until now, a large part of strategic equipment for AI was designed or assembled outside the continent.
The partnership aims to build a European production chain, from the manufacturing of components to their final integration. An approach which should make it possible to reduce delivery times while securing supplies.
“The partnership between Bull and Foxconn marks a turning point in strengthening AI infrastructure production capabilities in Europeâ€underlines Emmanuel Le Roux, general director of Bull.
Angers, key link in the project
For the Angevin site, this announcement represents new recognition of its historical know-how in high-performance computing. The systems will be assembled there and subjected to validation procedures before being placed on the market under the Bull brand.
Beyond the hardware, the company will also provide the software to manage these infrastructures and exploit the data generated by artificial intelligence tools.
According to the partners, this organization should allow European companies to have “made in Europe” solutions covering the entire chain, from the manufacturing of servers to their operation.
A market in full acceleration
This new step comes as the global race for artificial intelligence intensifies. The need for computing power is exploding with the development of conversational assistants, generative AI and systems capable of acting autonomously.
For NVIDIA, Bull and Foxconn, Europe now has an opportunity to develop its own infrastructures and reduce its dependence on foreign players. An ambition in which Angers could well become one of the nerve centers of European production dedicated to artificial intelligence.
