SCOPE kicks off to build sustainable computing for the Einstein Telescope
The SCOPE project (Sustainable Computing Prototype for the Einstein Telescope) was officially launched on 7 July 2026. Over the next three years, eleven partners from the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion will be working together to develop a sustainable computing infrastructure for the Einstein Telescope. The project has a budget of €5.2 million, 60 per cent of which is funded by Interreg Meuse-Rhine. The consortium comprises RWTH Aachen University, ULiège, Maastricht University, UHasselt, Forschungszentrum Jülich, H2ALL, Voyex, Ecoclean, CE+T and Keyes.
The project addresses one of the major challenges of the future Einstein Telescope: how to sustainably process the enormous volumes of data generated by its advanced instruments and infrastructures. As the Einstein Telescope will produce unprecedented amounts of scientific data, powerful computing infrastructures will be required to analyse these data efficiently while limiting energy consumption and environmental impact.
“Breathing computing”
SCOPE aims to demonstrate a realistic, scalable and sustainable computing concept by integrating an intelligent energy system, “breathing computing” to adapt computing workloads to energy availability, efficient cooling and the recovery of heat generated by computing equipment.
The key innovation of the project lies in combining energy and computing infrastructures within a single intelligent system, integrating renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind power with battery and hydrogen storage solutions. This approach will optimise resource use, improve the overall sustainability of the system and develop solutions applicable to other energy-intensive computing environments. Even possible applications in other energy intense industries beyond computing centers are being investigated.
To achieve these objectives, SCOPE will create and validate a full co-simulation together with hardware-in-the-loop simulations, plan, build and optimise the IT infrastructure, design and implement the electrical subsystem—including safety, control and monitoring—and integrate all components into a unified container with complete cooling and software integration.
The first six months of the project, from July 2026 to January 2027, are dedicated to planning, followed by pre-assembly activities. Although the funded project ends in June 2029, the prototype will continue operating afterwards at Jülich as a long-term platform for research, innovation and technology validation.
Several outreach activities are already planned, including the official powering-up of the prototype and stakeholder workshops dedicated to technology transfer.
This project complements other initiatives such as ETCETERA, another Interreg-funded project dedicated to developing data processing solutions, artificial intelligence models and computing infrastructure for the Einstein Telescope. While ETCETERA focuses on optimising data analysis and rapid scientific decision-making, SCOPE addresses the sustainability and energy efficiency of the underlying computing infrastructure needed to support these future workloads.
