Europe has sharply increased the share of components it can source locally for supercomputers, but memory remains the biggest unresolved weakness in the supply chain, according to Bull Chief Executive Emmanuel Le Roux.
Le Roux told Reuters that roughly 70% of the components used in Bull’s European-built systems can now be sourced within Europe, up from about 20% to 30% five years ago.
Processors are no longer the only problem
European suppliers can increasingly provide boards, interconnects, cooling systems and processors. That progress has reduced dependence on non-European vendors in several critical parts of high-performance computing infrastructure.
Memory is different. Europe still lacks a large domestic supplier capable of meeting the performance and volume requirements of leading supercomputers.
AI increases the importance of memory
The gap matters even more as artificial intelligence workloads consume increasing amounts of high-bandwidth memory. Modern accelerators can be limited by how quickly data moves to and from memory rather than by raw processor speed alone.
European governments have invested heavily in semiconductor independence, but memory manufacturing remains capital intensive and concentrated among a small number of Asian suppliers.
Sources: Reuters interview with Bull CEO Emmanuel Le Roux, Oct. 2, 2026; European high-performance computing background.
