The French government has recently acquired the supercomputer company Bull for €404 million (approximately $460 million) from IT outsourcer Atos. This acquisition marks the second nationalization of the company, the first occurring in 1982 when it was saved from bankruptcy. The French government made this move primarily to safeguard national security interests, given that Bull’s supercomputers are utilized by the French national nuclear weapons research laboratory, CEA-DAM.
Atos, which purchased Bull for €620 million in May 2014, has been experiencing its own financial issues. In August 2024, it attempted to offload its legacy infrastructure management business but was unsuccessful. The company has already avoided bankruptcy through a refinancing deal with banks and the French government. There were also considerations to sell its IT security business, highlighting Atos’s precarious financial situation.
Despite its troubles, Bull maintains a notable reputation. While part of Atos’ subsidiary Eviden, the company developed Jupiter, which was recognized as the world’s fourth most powerful supercomputer, boasting a computing capacity of 1 exaflop (1 billion billion floating-point operations per second). Furthermore, it is involved in building Europe’s second exascale supercomputer, Alice Recoque, which is scheduled for delivery in 2027.
