Düsseldorf, 21 August, 2026 – NEC Deutschland GmbH and RWTH Aachen University (RWTH) – one of the leading technical universities in Germany – today announced that NEC is going to provide RWTH with a powerful supercomputer for advanced AI and HPC workloads, CLAIX-2027.

CLAIX-2027 will further expand the RWTH Aachen University’s High Performance Computing infrastructure to meet the growing demand for computing resources in engineering, the natural sciences, data-intensive research, and AI. The system will combine nationally accessible resources within the National High Performance Computing (NHR) program with Tier-3 resources supporting researchers across North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). It will provide researchers with a state-of-the-art platform for large-scale simulations, AI workloads, and data analytics while ensuring the seamless integration into the existing CLAIX ecosystem, including storage, software environment, and user services. Together with comprehensive consulting, training, and application support provided by RWTH’s IT Center, CLAIX-2027 will strengthen the university’s role as a leading center for High Performance Computing and enable cutting-edge research at both the national and international level.

The heart of CLAIX-2027 is 53 nodes of the NEC HPC GPU server series, which in total provide 106 NVIDIA Grace CPU boards with 212 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs (GB200) for AI training and inference workloads. An additional x86-based partition for HPC customers in NRW contains 20 nodes, each equipped with 2x AMD 9655 CPUs and 768 GB main memory.

Moreover, several nodes are dedicated for interactive use: one for HPC, two for AI, and 5 additional nodes for auxiliary services like Kubernetes management, data movement, or fabric management.

The supercomputer comprises a 400 Gbit/s NVIDIA InfiniBand NDR interconnect in a 2:1 blocking configuration to ensure minimal latency and maximal bandwidth in network communication.

CLAIX-2027 also comprises an IBM Storage Scale System 6000 solution, based on 2 x IBM SSS6000H1 for the HOME and AI filesystems with a total capacity of 3 Petabytes, including 5 CES cluster nodes which provide NFS and S3 access, as well as 3 x IBM SSS6000H6 for the HPCWORK filesystem, with a total capacity of 25 Petabytes.

To ensure connectivity between the NDR high-speed interconnect and the campus-wide RWTH network, 4 gateway nodes will be put in place.

The complete solution includes an NEC FS600 direct-liquid cooling solution (DLC), to maximize power and cooling efficiency, at an inlet temperature of 35°C and a minimum outlet temperature of 40°C. Additional NEC DLCplus side coolers ensure that the complete supercomputer is effectively cooled via DLC.

"NEC provides an excellent solution. Our decision to choose NEC was based on a TCO-based evaluation process that ensures that the selected solution is the best fit to our needs. The NEC offer demonstrated a very good price-performance ratio with regards to the total cost of ownership, energy consumption with the RWTH-Job-Mix, and cooling efficiency, as well as the total performance," said Professor Dr. Matthias Müller, Director of the IT Center and responsible for High Performance Computing at RWTH Aachen University.

"We feel honoured that RWTH Aachen University has trusted us with the delivery and deployment of this new AI supercomputer. RWTH Aachen is one of the most renowned universities in Germany, and this project is a lighthouse project not only for the HPC datacentre, but also for NEC," said Noritaka Hoshi, Managing Director, NEC Deutschland GmbH.

About RWTH Aachen University

With its 260 institutes in ten faculties, RWTH Aachen University is among the leading European scientific and research institutions. Its graduates are sought-after as junior executives and leaders in business and industry.

National rankings and international assessments like Times Higher Education World University Rankings attest to the RWTH graduates' marked ability to handle complex tasks, to solve problems constructively in team work and to take on leadership roles. The University's innovative capacity is reflected in the high number of business start-ups (currently more than 1,400).

 

About NEC Deutschland GmbH

NEC Deutschland GmbH is a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Europe Ltd. and a leading provider of HPC and AI solutions, focusing on sustained performance for real-life scientific and engineering applications. To achieve this goal, NEC delivers technology and professional services to industry and academia, with highest energy-efficiency being one of the key design objectives. NEC develop advanced cooling technologies, leading-edge high-bandwidth vector-architecture, as well as a wide range of solutions for HPC storage, archiving, and research information infrastructure (RII) for efficient research data management.

 

 

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