​With the extended agreement, the two research institutions once again confirmed the value of the Franco-German partnership in science during a ceremony in Jülich. The initially loose cooperation between the CEA and the FZJ was put on its first contractual footing in 2008. "We are very pleased about the continuation and expansion of our collaboration. In the future, we will work together on other important topics relating to global challenges such as new energy technologies or the hydrogen economy and consolidate our collaboration in the fields of artificial intelligence, high-performance data analysis and quantum computing," says François Jacq, summarizing the signing of the contract. Following the renewal of the contract in 2013, the CEA and FZJ are reaffirming their joint commitment to Franco-German scientific cooperation for the third time.

The research area of artificial intelligence, data analytics and simulation is particularly important within the joint research. The joint virtual laboratory "AI, Data Analytics and Scalable Simulations - AIDAS" combines the strengths of the partners - towards a European institute for simulation, quantum computing, data analytics and AI in the age of exascale computing. "In addition to signing the cooperation agreement," says Prof. Astrid Lambrecht, "today we were also able to send a strong signal to both sides for the extension and deepening of the AIDAS joint lab. The virtual lab has already shown how fruitful joint work and research across national borders can be." Both partners have extensive expertise and infrastructures in the field of numerical simulation, covering the entire range from basic research to the operation and management of supercomputers in the high-performance computing sector.