Denmark has launched its largest and most powerful AI supercomputer, marking a significant leap in the country’s technological capabilities. Named Gefion after a goddess in Danish mythology, the system was officially activated by King Frederik X alongside NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang joined the king of Denmark to launch the country’s largest sovereign AI supercomputer
Built on NVIDIA’s DGX SuperPOD architecture, Gefion packs 1,528 H100 Tensor Core GPUs, making it one of the world’s most advanced AI computing systems. The 30-ton machine, which requires 65 kilometers of cable to operate, will serve as Denmark’s first sovereign AI supercomputer.
“Gefion is going to be a factory of intelligence,” Huang said at the launch event. “This is a new industry that never existed before. It sits on top of the IT industry.”
The supercomputer is the result of a public-private partnership between the Novo Nordisk Foundation, which invested 600 million Danish kroner ($87 million), and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, contributing an additional 100 million kroner. The Danish Center for AI Innovation (DCAI) will operate the facility.
Six pilot projects have already been selected to harness Gefion’s computing power. These include the Danish Meteorological Institute’s effort to deliver weather forecasts in minutes instead of hours, and a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Technical University of Denmark, and Novo Nordisk to develop genomic models for disease analysis and vaccine design.
The system will begin serving a broader range of users in early 2025. It’s housed in a Digital Realty data center in Copenhagen that runs entirely on renewable energy, reflecting Denmark’s commitment to sustainable technology development.
For Novo Nordisk, Europe’s most valuable company and maker of Ozempic, Gefion represents a significant opportunity to accelerate drug discovery through AI. “Computer-aided drug discovery is going to revolutionize the industry,” Huang predicted, though experts note that AI’s impact on clinical success rates remains to be proven.
The supercomputer’s launch positions Denmark among a select group of nations with sovereign AI capabilities, enabling the country to develop AI models that reflect its unique culture and language while addressing global challenges in climate change, healthcare, and quantum computing.