"In addition to being one of the most powerful computers in the world and currently ranked 105 on the Top500 list, France's Jean Zay supercomputer is now the first HPC to have a photonic coprocessor."

"Unlike traditional processors which use electric current, LightOn's photonic coprocessor transmits and processes information using light. The company's photonics coprocessor was added to the Jean Zay supercomputer under a pilot program with GENCI and IDRIS and represents not only a technological breakthrough but also a first for the industry."

"So far, LightOn's technology has successfully been used by a community of researchers since 2018. "

"Now though, its photonic coprocessor will be available to select users of the Jean Zay research community over the next few months who will use the device to conduct research on machine learning foundations, differential privacy, satellite imaging analysis and natural language processing (NLP) tasks."