NVIDIA and RIKEN Collaboration for Japan's Scientific Future

NVIDIA, in collaboration with Japan's national research institute RIKEN, will integrate two new supercomputers. These computers, powered by NVIDIA GB200 systems, will make Japan a significant player on the chessboard of science and quantum computing.

The first system will use 1,600 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and will interact with the NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand network. This system will advance research in areas such as life sciences, materials science, climate and weather forecasting, manufacturing, and laboratory automation. The second system, dedicated to quantum computing, will be supported by 540 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and will conduct accelerated research on the same platform.

Ian Buck, Vice President of Hyperscale and High-Performance Computing at NVIDIA, stated, "RIKEN is one of the world's largest scientific institutions and is leading the way into a new era of computing today. By working together, we are helping Japan lay the foundation for sovereign innovation."

Satoshi Matsuoka, Director of the RIKEN Center for Computational Science, emphasized the importance of the collaboration by saying, "Integrating these advanced supercomputers is a turning point for Japan's scientific infrastructure."

This follows the new partnership called FugakuNEXT, which comes after the world-renowned Fugaku supercomputer and follows the collaboration between Fujitsu and NVIDIA. FugakuNEXT will be equipped with FUJITSU-MONAKA-X processors and NVIDIA NVLink™ Fusion technology and will be integrated with quantum computers in the future.

NVIDIA is developing software that accelerates traditional scientific computing in collaboration with RIKEN. This technology will enable supercomputer centers around the world to fully utilize the performance of NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs. Additionally, with NVIDIA CUDA-X, RIKEN will enhance HPC applications and advance AI and quantum computing initiatives in Japan. The two new supercomputers are planned to be operational by spring 2026.