Greece inaugurated its national Daedalus supercomputer on Monday, 19 October, at the Lavrio Technological and Cultural Park of the National Technical University of Athens, in the presence of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. With a measured computing performance of 85.69 petaflops, Daedalus ranks 31st worldwide in the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers and 23rd in the Green500 ranking for energy efficiency.
The system represents a major investment in Greece’s high-performance computing infrastructure and will support scientific research, artificial intelligence (AI) development and large-scale data processing.
Daedalus operates from a new data centre housed in the historic building of Lavrio’s former power station, a recognised monument of modern industrial heritage. The project, implemented by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology Network (GRNET), has a total budget of €58.9 million.
The supercomputer will provide computing resources to universities, research centres, start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and public-sector organisations. Its capabilities will support scientific simulations, large-scale data analysis and the training of AI models.
Daedalus delivers approximately 150 times the computing power of Greece’s existing ARIS supercomputer. Its performance places Greece more prominently on the international high-performance computing landscape and strengthens the country’s capacity to attract researchers and support internationally competitive scientific work.
Daedalus to Power Greece’s National AI Factory
Daedalus will serve as the computing backbone of Greece’s national artificial intelligence factory, Pharos, which forms part of the European network of AI factories.
The initiative aims to advance AI applications in areas including healthcare, environmental sustainability, climate research, the Greek language and culture. Other potential applications include personalised medicine, public administration and cybersecurity.
GRNET, operating under the Ministry of Digital Governance, coordinates the project, while Pharos SA, a subsidiary associated with the Hellenic Corporation of Assets and Participations and the Ministry of Digital Governance, serves as its business arm.
The initiative forms part of Greece’s broader strategy to strengthen its capabilities in critical technologies and contribute to the European Union’s digital sovereignty.
Daedalus Ranks Among Europe’s Leading Supercomputers
The international TOP500 and Green500 rankings officially recognise Daedalus among the world’s leading supercomputing systems. The rankings were announced in Hamburg, Germany, during ISC 2026, according to the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU).
Daedalus secured 31st place in TOP500 and 23rd place in Green500, highlighting its combination of computing performance and energy efficiency. It joins major European systems, including JUPITER in Germany, LUMI in Finland, Leonardo in Italy and Arrhenius in Sweden, among the continent’s prominent high-performance computing resources.
The system uses Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) architecture, NVIDIA GH200 accelerators and direct liquid-cooling technology. Its measured performance of 85.69 petaflops makes it the most powerful supercomputing system in Greece to date.
The Lavrio data centre incorporates sustainability measures, including renewable energy sources and advanced cooling systems, to reduce energy consumption.
What the TOP500 and Green500 Rankings Measure
The TOP500 list ranks the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers according to their measured performance on the internationally recognised LINPACK benchmark, which assesses their ability to perform complex mathematical calculations.
The Green500 ranking evaluates the energy efficiency of systems featured in TOP500, measuring the computing power they deliver relative to the energy they consume.
Daedalus’s position in both rankings demonstrates Greece’s progress in combining high computing performance with more energy-efficient operations.
Supporting Research Across Greece and Europe
The national supercomputer will serve Greece’s scientific and academic communities, industry and public sector, while also supporting wider European research and innovation.
Through its computing capacity and integration with Pharos, Daedalus will help researchers develop advanced AI applications, process increasingly large datasets and address complex scientific challenges.
The project forms part of Greece’s Greece 2.0 National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with funding from the European Union through NextGenerationEU and the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.
(Source: Athens-Macedonian News Agency)
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