High performance computing (HPC) cloud provider Qarnot has received funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund.
With the new funding round, Qarnot will accelerate its deployment of computing clusters in "strategic locations" to provide HPC cloud services for sectors including aerospace, automotive, energy, and AI.
It has not been shared how much the EIC Fund is investing in Qarnot.
The move is part of a broader European strategy to strengthen technological sovereignty and deep-tech innovation. Qarnot's HPC cloud will be fully sovereign and also aims to be a sustainable solution, with Qarnot reusing waste heat from its data center locations.
“Europe is taking a decisive step toward building an independent computing ecosystem. When supporting companies like Qarnot, we are ensuring that our researchers, engineers, and deep tech start-ups can innovate freely, without relying on external providers,” said Svetoslava Georgieva, chair of the EIC Fund Board.
"The EIC is delivering a bold response to the challenges we face today—rising energy costs, geopolitical uncertainty, and the pressing need for digital autonomy— by investing in Qarnot’s next-generation cloud HPC platform, Europe is a hub of innovation, and with the right support, its deep-tech companies will drive the breakthroughs that will shape our technological future,” added Paul Benoit, co-founder and CEO at Qarnot.
Qarnot was previously known as a "digital boiler" startup, placing its compute hardware in locations where it could heat water in office or residential developments.
It is unclear where the HPC cloud will be hosted, with Qarnot typically using a model where servers are "distributed throughout the city" and "directly installed in buildings where waste heat is recovered (housing, offices, schools, logistics warehouses, etc.)."
In 2020, the company raised around $6.5 million, adding to the $2.5m it had received from Data4 Group a few years earlier. It raised another €35 million ($37.5m) in early 2023 to expand its operations. According to the company website, it was founded in 2010 by Paul Benoit and Miroslav Sviezeny.
TechCrunch has previously reported that the company rolled out a pilot data center in Finland with 100kW of compute. It has also said it would be installing its QBx computing unit in data centers in France and Europe with power ranging from ‘hundreds of kW to a few MW.’
The company says that it currently has more than 50,000 computing cores spread over many sites in France and Europe, particularly in Finland.
Companies including MaiaSpace, an ArianeGroup subsidiary, and Dark reportedly use Qarnot’s infrastructure for complex aerodynamics, propulsion, and thermal modeling simulations.
