RIKEN is collaborating with Fujitsu Limited(Fujitsu) and NVIDIA to launch an international initiative for the development of Japan's new flagship supercomputer - the next-generation successor to the current "Fugaku" supercomputer - (development codename: "FugakuNEXT"). For the first time in Japan's flagship supercomputing systems, GPUs will be adopted as accelerators, with NVIDIA leading the design for the GPU infrastructure. Fujitsu, which has already been working with RIKEN, will lead the basic design of the overall system, compute nodes, and CPUs. As a foundation for high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure, the three organizations will work together to build an "AI-HPC platform" to solve challenges through computation.

Aiming for operation around 2030, FugakuNEXT is envisioned to deliver not only the simulation performance pursued by previous supercomputers, but also world-leading capabilities in both simulation and AI, with the two working in close integration as a unified "AI-HPC platform". To this end, FugakuNEXT will extend the CPU technologies developed for Fugaku, while incorporating GPUs as accelerators, aiming to maximize execution performance for both simulation and AI applications. At the same time, to continuously generate scientific achievements through the use of next-generation computing infrastructure, it is becoming increasingly important to pursue not only advances in hardware technology, but also comprehensive innovations in software and algorithms.

In this project, the three organizations will combine RIKEN's strengths in software and algorithm technologies, Fujitsu's expertise in CPU and system integration technologies, and NVIDIA's GPU technologies and ecosystem. Through this collaboration, we aim to develop a highly competitive system and establish a global ecosystem through deployment in the international market. In addition, FugakuNEXT will pursue up to a hundredfold increase in application performance over Fugaku, aiming to deliver these achievements worldwide. Furthermore, through joint Japan-U.S. efforts in developing FugakuNEXT, the project seeks to establish an "AI-HPC platform" as a new global standard, and to dramatically accelerate "AI for Science" - the automation and advancement of research processes such as hypothesis generation and validation. The development of this world-class "AI-HPC platform" will enhance globally competitive domestic technologies and strengthen Japan's strategic indispensability in the information industry and semiconductor technologies, thereby strengthening its industrial competitiveness.

(Reference links in Japanese)

• 2025年1月22日お知らせ「スーパーコンピュータ「富岳」の次世代となる新たなフラッグシップシステムの開発・整備を開始」
• 2025年3月28日お知らせ「「富岳NEXT」を理化学研究所 神戸地区隣接地に整備」
• 2025年6月18日お知らせ「「富岳NEXT」の全体システムなどに関わる基本設計の業務実施者を富士通株式会社に決定」
• 2025年6月18日富士通プレスリリース「スーパーコンピュータ「富岳」の次世代となる新たなフラッグシップシステムの基本設計を受注」

Challenges in supercomputer development

Fugaku delivered approximately a forty-fold increase in hardware performance over its predecessor, the "K computer", through the adoption of cutting-edge semiconductor technologies and high-performance memory available at the time. Furthermore, through RIKEN's leadership in enhancing and optimizing applications, performance was accelerated by approximately three-fold, enabling total gains in application performance that exceeded the target of a hundred-fold improvement for certain applications. However, in recent years, the slowdown in performance and power efficiency gains from semiconductor process technology has made it increasingly difficult to achieve significant improvements in hardware performance. Therefore, in addition to advances in hardware, new approaches driven by innovations in software and algorithms are indispensable.

For Advancing Science and Industrial Competitiveness in HPC

FugakuNEXT will contribute to strengthening Japan's semiconductor and computing infrastructure, while ensuring national sovereignty in advanced AI technologies and computing platforms. At the same time, it aims to establish a global ecosystem, in both hardware and software, through deployment in the international market. On the hardware side, the system will feature a successor to the general-purpose CPU "FUJITSU-MONAKA", currently under development by Fujitsu, further evolved into a new CPU tentatively named "FUJITSU- MONAKA-X", combined with a GPU designed by NVIDIA that emphasizes parallel processing performance and bandwidth as the accelerator. The basic design will explore the adoption of cutting-edge connection technologies between the CPU and GPU, while also considering the incorporation of advanced memory technologies. As a result, FugakuNEXT will target more than a fivefold improvement in hardware performance over Fugaku.

The FUJITSU-MONAKA-X CPU, currently being designed by Fujitsu, will be an enhanced version of the high-performance, energy-efficient, and high security FUJITSU-MONAKA. With ultra-many cores and extended SIMD functionality providing high scalability, it will deliver outstanding processing performance for HPC applications such as numerical simulations. In addition, by integrating the matrix computation engine (Arm SME) into the CPU, it enables low-latency AI inference processing. When combined with the GPU with high-bandwidth, tightly coupled integration, the system will deliver exceptional performance in AI training and GPU-optimized HPC applications. These advancements will enable the system to address a wide spectrum of computing needs, from general-purpose workloads to numerical simulations and AI processing.

The computation accelerator (GPU) designed by NVIDIA will enable dramatic and sustained performance improvements for HPC applications requiring advanced parallel processing and for AI applications including generative AI whose adoption is rapidly expanding in industry as well as for next-generation applications that integrate AI and HPC. In addition, it will deliver superior power efficiency, high reliability, and availability.

To further improve application performance, software-side innovations will be indispensable - encompassing the proactive use of mixed-precision computing, the effective use of AI-oriented hardware such as leveraging low-precision computing units for high-precision calculations (e.g., the Ozaki scheme), and algorithmic optimizations including the adoption of surrogate models and PINNs (Physics-Informed Neural Networks) to replace complex computations with AI. Through joint R&D efforts led by RIKEN in collaboration with Fujitsu and NVIDIA, the project will aim to achieve an additional ten- to twentyfold increase in effective application performance, beyond the acceleration provided by hardware alone.

Ultimately, by combining the hardware performance improvements achieved through the joint development by RIKEN, Fujitsu, and NVIDIA with the algorithmic and software innovations driven by their collaboration, the project aims to deliver, within the same approximately 40MW power constraint as during the development of Fugaku, up to a hundredfold overall increase in application performance - comparable to the scale of improvement targeted in the transition from the "K" computer to Fugaku. In addition, by advancing "AI for Science" - including AI-driven hypothesis generation and validation, automated code generation, and the automation of physical experiments - the project will seek to accelerate the entire cycle of scientific discovery.

Designed on the basis of advanced technologies from both Japan and the U.S, FugakuNEXT will feature AI-oriented hardware performance exceeding 600 exaFLOPS (EFLOPS) in FP8 precision (sparse), and is expected to become the world's first "Zetta-scale" system as a supercomputer for HPC. The software, AI models, and applications developed in this project will be made openly available via cloud environments - such as through the "virtual Fugaku" - even prior to the launch of FugakuNEXT system, thereby fostering an ecosystem for high-performance computing infrastructure in the era of AI-simulation convergence.

Advanced Software and Application Innovations Enabled by FugakuNEXT (Examples)

In the FugakuNEXT project, alongside hardware development, support for the development of advanced applications is also recognized as a critical component of the initiative. RIKEN will promote GPU porting and optimization support as well as the construction of the FugakuNEXT testbed, leveraging available CPU/GPU systems such as the "AI for Science Development Supercomputer". In particular, for system design and application co-design incorporating CI/CD/CB technologies, RIKEN will work in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the "Project Arrangement for High-Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence" between Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the DOE. This collaboration will promote the development of a continuous performance evaluation environment through the use of the automated benchmarking environment "Benchpark",　and will involve close engagement with the broader application community.

On the software side, RIKEN will lead efforts in close collaboration with universities and research institutions, working together with Fujitsu and NVIDIA to develop advanced environments, such as enabling effective use of AI processing capabilities, preparing libraries that facilitate the acceleration of complex computations through AI, and supporting AI-driven code development and optimization for FugakuNEXT. It will also be important to ensure that commercial applications and a wide variety of open-source software (OSS) run smoothly, and thereby, the software stack developed by RIKEN for Fugaku and the virtual Fugaku will be further advanced and made available for use in FugakuNEXT.

In concrete application deployment, fully leveraging the capabilities of next-generation computing infrastructure will require not only improvements in physical simulation but also the integration and optimization of data-driven technologies such as AI. The group led by Associate Professor Kohei Fujita (Earthquake Research Institute, The University of Tokyo / Visiting Researcher at RIKEN) is working to deepen understanding of the mechanisms of earthquake generation, with the ultimate goal of contributing to future disaster prevention and mitigation for earthquakes and tsunamis. By advancing the development of a "multiscale simulator" capable of seamlessly addressing both large-scale crustal deformation and localized seismic motion, it is anticipated that researchers will, for example, be able to use computational models to assess the likelihood of subsequent earthquakes in surrounding areas following a major seismic event.

Efforts are also underway to bring innovation to manufacturing by combining HPC and AI. Traditionally, manufacturing design processes depended largely on human expertise and iterative trial and error. At present, efficiency improvements are being achieved by integrating HPC-based simulations with AI-based pattern recognition and predictive modeling. In the future, AI will be able to learn from high-precision HPC simulations, and the collaboration of AI agents with generative AI is expected to automate the creation of optimal designs that meet multiple requirements - including performance, safety, and cost - enabling rapid and highly competitive product development.

Future Plans

Regarding the development of FugakuNEXT the basic design is scheduled to be completed within fiscal year 2025, with a transition to detailed design from fiscal year 2026. RIKEN envisions establishing an international collaboration framework with leading HPC research institutes worldwide, including those under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to advance the development of software and algorithms, thereby fostering the creation of an ecosystem centered on FugakuNEXT.

RIKEN will foster the creation of new applications in emerging scientific and technological domains envisioned for the FugakuNEXT era, including "AI for Science", and promote application readiness for the accelerators already designated for introduction in FugakuNEXT. These efforts will be accompanied by human resource development initiatives to ensure that tangible results can be achieved as soon as FugakuNEXT enters operation around 2030.

Furthermore, the integration of HPC with quantum computers (QC) is becoming increasingly important in expanding computational frontiers, as applications leveraging quantum utility are already being realized. Anticipating that QC-HPC integration will progress even further by around 2030, when FugakuNEXT is expected to enter operation, RIKEN will work to adapt software stacks developed at RIKEN, universities, research institutions, and companies, so that they can also be utilized in FugakuNEXT to build a hybrid QC-HPC environment.

Comments from Organizations

Makoto Gonokami, RIKEN President,
"It is a great honor for RIKEN to collaborate with Fujitsu and NVIDIA in advancing the development of FugakuNEXT. Since ancient times, humankind has built civilizations and advanced societies through the science of computing. Today, the emergence of AI, advanced semiconductors, and quantum computers is bringing about a discontinuous transformation in computational science - a historic paradigm shift that opens entirely new horizons.
RIKEN has long been at the forefront of computational science, demonstrating global leadership through the development and deployment of world-class supercomputer systems such as the K computer and Fugaku. With the principle of "inheritance and innovation", FugakuNEXT will integrate knowledge spanning hardware, software, and algorithms to achieve unprecedented performance and establish new global standards. In alignment with Japan's semiconductor strategy, and through strong collaboration with diverse domestic and international partners, the FugakuNEXT project will contribute to solving global challenges and fostering sustainable industrial growth - realized through the vision of "Made with Japan"."

Vivek Mahajan, Corporate Executive Officer, Corporate Vice President, CTO, in charge of Systems Platform, Fujitsu Limited
"Fujitsu is honored to be a part of this collaboration. Leveraging our cutting-edge Made-in-Japan FUJITSU-MONAKA CPU technology and expertise developed through system building projects like Fugaku, we will contribute to establishing a world-leading next-generation computational infrastructure, working in strong collaboration with RIKEN and our partner vendors. Fujitsu is also committed to quantum computing technology, aiming to build a superconducting quantum computer with over 10,000 physical qubits and 250 logical qubits by fiscal year 2030. We will integrate the technology developed in the FugakuNEXT project with this quantum technology to realize a quantum-HPC hybrid platform and create new value through novel computational methods."

Ian Buck, Vice President of Hyperscale & High-Performance Computing, NVIDIA
"Japan is a global technology leader, advancing manufacturing, robotics and engineering excellence while focusing on natural disaster resilience and an aging population - and AI and HPC are uniquely poised to help address these complex challenges. Through the collaboration of RIKEN, Fujitsu, and NVIDIA,　 FugakuNEXT will deliver zettascale performance with application speeds nearly 100 times faster - within the same energy footprint as its predecessor - accelerating research, boosting industrial competitiveness, and driving progress for people in Japan and around the world."

Contact Information

Computational Science Promotion Division (Outreach Group), RIKEN
Email: r-ccs-koho@ml.riken.jp

Public Relations Division (Media Relations Section), RIKEN
Tel: 050-3495-0247
Email: ex-press@ml.riken.jp