HPE to Open New Factory in the Czech Republic

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced it will build its first factory in Europe for next-generation high-performance computing and AI systems to accelerate delivery to customers and strengthen the region’s supplier ecosystem. The new site will manufacture HPE’s systems as custom-designed solutions to advance scientific research, mature AL/ML initiatives, and bolster innovation.

The dedicated factory, which will become the fourth of HPE’s global HPC sites, will be located in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, next to the company's existing European site for manufacturing its industry-standard servers and storage solutions. Operations will begin this summer, the company noted in a press release. The new site will manufacture and ship two main product lines, the HPE Apollo systems, and the HPE Cray EX supercomputers. The two product lines each deliver end-to-end HPC and AI capabilities spanning compute, accelerated computing, software, networking, storage, and liquid-cooled capabilities.

“When European organizations adopt next-generation supercomputing, they gain a powerful foundation to seize opportunities of exponential data growth to accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen digital sovereignty and unlock innovations to deliver greater economic value,“ said Justin Hotard, executive vice president, and general manager, HPC & AI, at HPE. “HPE is committed to continue supporting Europe in this endeavor and our new HPC factory in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, is another significant investment, among our other R&D initiatives, that we have made in Europe. We are now able to manufacture the industry’s leading supercomputing, HPC, and AI systems while increasing supply chain viability and resiliency.“

HPE has an extensive HPC and AI footprint in Europe that is centered on advancing national initiatives to drive time-to-insight in complex scientific research that is critical to solving challenging world problems such as predicting and preparing for extreme weather events, diagnosing, and treating diseases, and improving food security and sustainability. The company already has strong collaborations in Europe, including the European HPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), an initiative between the EU, European countries, and industry technology partners to coordinate and combine their resources to develop world-class pre-exascale and exascale supercomputers in Europe.

The new factory in the Czech Republic is also designed to meet specific manufacturing requirements of HPE’s liquid-cooled HPC and AI systems, which are ideal cooling options for performance-intensive systems. To support this capability, the factory features a floor reinforced to withstand the weight of Cray EX supercomputers, which are up to 8,000 pounds (3,628 kilograms) per cabinet, and includes a water circuit between the supercomputers and the roof of the building to help cool down hot water. HPE concluded that their long-standing manufacturing service partner, Foxconn, will support the site’s product manufacturing and shipping as it currently does for the main site in Kutná Hora.