# Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS)

Canonical page: https://technooptimist.io/companies/cscs
CSCS, part of ETH Zurich, runs Switzerland's national supercomputers in Lugano. Its Alps machine, built on NVIDIA Grace Hopper chips, serves weather forecasting, science and the training of Apertus, Switzerland's fully open language model.

## In brief

- Alps: 10,752 GH200 superchips, 434.9 PFlop/s, No. 10 on the June 2026 TOP500.
- Trained Apertus, a fully open 8B/70B model, on about 40% of Alps for three to four months.
- Cooled with Lake Lugano water; waste heat feeds district heating.

## Facts

- Headquarters: CH
- Status: government (ETH Zurich)
- Frontiers: [Computing](https://technooptimist.io/computing.md) (Supercomputers), [AI](https://technooptimist.io/ai.md)

## Programs

- [Alps](https://technooptimist.io/computing/alps.md) (Computing): Deploy; next: Apertus 2.0 (2027). In full production; No. 10 on the TOP500 (Jun 2026) and serving Apertus 1.5 to researchers since July 2026.

## Technical approach

- **vClusters: One machine, many clusters**: A software layer splits Alps into partitions tailored to each user group, from MeteoSwiss forecasts to AI training, like a private cloud.
- **Hardware: Grace Hopper at scale**: CSCS was the first customer for NVIDIA's Grace Hopper superchips, which pair a CPU and GPU sharing fast memory on one module.
- **Cooling: Lake water, zero consumption**: Water drawn from Lake Lugano cools the machine and is returned; the waste heat goes into the local district heating network.

## Open problems

- **Staying relevant against hyperscale AI** (open): Director Thomas Schulthess expects AI data centres to grow 10-100x, but not at CSCS; it will focus on innovative pilot systems instead.

## Latest updates

- **20 Sep 2026**: CSCS completes Alps' shift to a cloud-style research platform; Apertus 1.5 served since July. CSCS says Alps now runs as an integrated stack of hardware, software and services rather than a fixed mainframe. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/cscs-completes-alps-shift-to-a-cloud-style-research-platform-apertus-1-fd8dd487.md) · [original source](https://www.netzwoche.ch/news/2026-09-20/mehr-als-ein-supercomputer))
- **Sep 2025**: Swiss AI Initiative releases Apertus, a fully open 70B language model trained on Alps. EPFL, ETH Zurich and CSCS released Apertus in 8B and 70B sizes, trained on 15 trillion tokens covering over 1,000 languages, with weights, data and recipes open. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/swiss-ai-initiative-releases-apertus-a-fully-open-70b-language-model-a3f3b3c5.md) · [original source](https://opendatascience.com/switzerland-launches-apertus-a-fully-open-ai-model-for-research-and-industry/))
- **14 Sep 2024**: Alps supercomputer inaugurated in Lugano with 10,752 NVIDIA Grace Hopper superchips. ETH Zurich opened Alps at CSCS, an HPE Cray machine with 10,752 GH200 superchips aiming for about half an exaflop of peak performance. ([our story](https://technooptimist.io/stories/alps-supercomputer-inaugurated-in-lugano-with-10-752-nvidia-grace-06f2a079.md) · [original source](https://www.pctipp.ch/themen/news/alps-supercomputer-im-tessin-eingeweiht))

## Partners, customers and investors

- HPE (supplier): Built Alps as an HPE Cray EX system.
- NVIDIA (supplier): Supplies the GH200 Grace Hopper superchips; CSCS was the first customer.
- MeteoSwiss (customer): Runs higher-resolution national weather forecasts on Alps.

## People

- Thomas Schulthess, Director, CSCS

---

The Techno Optimist tracks every frontier of technology, program by program: https://technooptimist.io/ (a Markdown version of any page: add .md to its URL; site map for agents: https://technooptimist.io/llms.txt).
Data API (JSON, realtime stream): https://technooptimist.io/developers. People read 5 pages free, then Reader $10/month; these Markdown pages are open to agents.