Bull opens €80M Angers factory to double supercomputer output

According to Bull, the expansion lets it build several large supercomputers at once, including France's 94-rack Alice Recoque and Finland's €388 million LUMI-AI, its largest contract to date. The site also gets more than 3,500 solar panels (1,500 kWp) and a heat-recovery system, and it relies on Bull's patented Direct Liquid Cooling, which works with water at up to 40°C.

Reducing reliance on overseas suppliers

Le Roux framed the investment as a question of European sovereignty. Bull has developed its own BXI interconnect, holds a stake in chip designer SiPearl and now sources electronic boards made in France. He says European-made components account for about 70 per cent of systems built at Angers, up from 20–30 per cent five years ago. His claim that LUMI-AI will be 70 per cent European-made has not been independently verified.

The EU has committed about €7 billion to EuroHPC JU over 2021–2027, and Le Roux says Bull has won 15 of 18 of its tenders.

Open Factory for startups

Bull also announced an Open Factory initiative to give other technology companies access to its industrial capacity, helping them move from prototypes to production. Petr Bednařík, Bull's AI Strategy Director, says startups building AI or HPC hardware could avoid the cost of their own manufacturing. Bull may also contribute engineers, for example three for two years, as part of an investment, rather than act as a conventional venture fund.