French company SiPearl announces Athena1, a customized version of its Rhea1 chip designed for public administrations, defense, and aerospace, with variants ranging from 16 to 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, high security and integrity features, and a commercial rollout planned for late 2027. Die manufacturing is handled by TSMC, and packaging efforts aim to move to Europe.
In the midst of ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, with rising cyberattacks and armed conflicts, the debate over European technological sovereignty is no longer theoretical: it translates into concrete industrial decisions. One such decision comes from Maisons-Laffitte (France), where SiPearl, a European fabless designer of high-performance, energy-efficient processors for HPC, AI, and data centers, announced on October 2, 2025 the launch of Athena1, a “sovereign” processor aimed at .
The company, incubated within the framework of the European Processor Initiative (EPI) and early-funded by the European Union, developed Athena1 based on experience gained with Rhea1, its first high-performance processor dedicated to HPC. SiPearl explains that Athena1 is designed to address specific workloads in government, defense, and aerospace sectors, with a special focus on security, integrity, and reduced carbon footprint. Practically, this means supporting scenarios such as secure communications and intelligence, cryptography and encryption, intelligence processing, tactical networks, electronic detection, and local data processing in vehicles.
A Catalog for Power: from 16 to 80 Arm Neoverse V1 Cores
The new Athena1 will not be a single monolithic chip but a family offering different variants (SKUs) with 16, 32, 48, 64, or 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores. These will be tailored to specific needs, adjusting for power consumption, computing performance, and thermal constraints. The full technical specifications are yet to be published—expected later—but the design principles are clear: maximum performance per watt in critical applications where latency, data integrity, and intrusion protection are non-negotiable.
Beyond core count, SiPearl emphasizes two pillars: security and integrity. This focus is no coincidence. European administrations and military forces aim to reduce dependence on foreign technologies and secure their supply chains against potential “backdoors” and “kill switches”. SiPearl has previously highlighted with Rhea1 its commitment to transparency, avoiding backdoors and remote shutdown mechanisms—principles inherited by Athena1 to meet sovereign hardware requirements.
Manufacturing at TSMC and Future Packaging in Europe
SiPearl confirms that the die manufacturing for Athena1 will be entrusted to TSMC, the Taiwanese giant and leading independent foundry of advanced semiconductors. Initial packaging will occur in Taiwan, with plans to move this process to Europe in the future to expand the industrial ecosystem on the continent. The commercial availability is scheduled for the second half of 2027, allowing governments and suppliers ample time to plan for procurement, certification, and deployment of platforms incorporating Athena1.
This roadmap carries clear political and industrial signals: Europe aims to control more links in the value chain—design, manufacturing, testing, and packaging—to reduce vulnerabilities in critical sectors. SiPearl’s goal of relocalizing packaging aligns with the growing importance of high-bandwidth memory and heterointegration techniques demanded by next-generation computing.
Rhea1, the Exascale “Big Brother” Already in Production
The development of Athena1 is supported by progress in Rhea1, SiPearl’s first processor targeted at supercomputing and AI inference. Rhea1 integrates 80 Arm® Neoverse V1 cores with dual 256-bit SVE units per core, integrated HBM memory with 4 stacks, 4 DDR5 interfaces supporting 2DPC (two modules per channel), and 104 PCIe Gen 5 lines. With 61 billion transistors, SiPearl states that Rhea1 is the most complex processor ever designed in Europe.
Rhea1 is also being produced at TSMC and is expected to be available for sampling in early 2026. Its flagship role will be to power JUPITER, the first European exascale supercomputer—capable of approximately one million billion (10^18) operations per second—owned by EuroHPC JU and operated by Forschungszentrum Jülich. Beyond the symbolic milestone, this project is a strategic asset for security, defense, medical research, energy, climate, and engineering, sectors in which Europe refuses to fall behind.
An Expanding European Company with New Financial Leap on the Horizon
SiPearl operates as a fabless designer, with teams based in France, Spain, and Italy, employing 200 staff members. After closing a Series A funding round of €130 million, the company has now launched its Series B round, signaling that both public and private markets consider European high-performance silicon critical. In the software domain, SiPearl’s Arm-based ecosystem—with mature tools, libraries, and compilers—plays a key role in enabling supercomputing centers, universities, and industry partners to adopt and deploy the platform smoothly.
Why Athena1 Matters: From Sovereignty Discourse to Real Deployment
The Athena1 launch extends beyond a mere derivative of Rhea1. It signifies a dual-use approach in Europe, aiming to move sovereignty from HPC labs directly into the realm of critical missions: from secure communications and high-level encryption to edge processing in vehicles, tactical networks, and electronic detection. SiPearl emphasizes that Athena1 will focus heavily on security and integrity, implementing trust chains, resource isolation, protected data pathways, and resilience against intrusions.
Company founder and CEO Philippe Notton succinctly states that in a geopolitically tense era, European technological sovereignty is inseparable from sovereign hardware. The logical step is to leverage the know-how developed for Rhea1 and adapt it for dual-use applications. In this plan, Athena1 complements Rhea1 to strengthen Europe’s strategic independence on the hardware front.
What to Expect After 2027
While detailed specifications of Athena1 will be shared later, the combination of variants with 16 to 80 cores, Arm Neoverse V1 architecture, and government-grade security points toward versatile platforms for:
- Command and control systems with high encryption and availability requirements.
- Perimeter processing in land, air, or maritime vehicles, where latency and energy efficiency are critical.
- Sectors’ data centers—defense, homeland security, aerospace—requiring supply chain control and no backdoors.
- Sensitive environments with thermal or space constraints, where a lower-core SKU may be preferable to an 80-core design.
Additionally, relocating packaging to Europe would mark a significant strategic shift: enhancing supply chain resilience, fostering industrial capabilities in HBM, advanced substrates, and heterogeneous integration. In a market where advanced packaging and co-integration with accelerators—GPUs, AI, and future quantum co-processors—are vital, local capacity becomes a key strategic asset.
An Ecosystem Ready for Third-Party Accelerators
Both Rhea1 and SiPearl’s broader philosophy emphasize flexibility: their designs are conceived to work seamlessly with third-party accelerators (GPUs, AI modules, and eventually quantum processors). This openness enables European institutions and suppliers to assemble tailored compute stacks—ranging from numerical simulation and generative AI to signal analysis—with a European control processor and accelerators aligned with cutting-edge market standards. The PCIe Gen 5 interconnect (104 lanes in Rhea1) further supports scalability and modularity.
Uncompromising Security and End-to-End Secure Transmission
SiPearl has made the no backdoors or “kill switches” policy a core principle. This message, already present in Rhea1 with its secure end-to-end network transmission, gains even greater importance in Athena1, which targets domains demanding unnegotiable cryptographic and integrity guarantees. Although SiPearl hasn’t yet outlined specific security blocks, its approach points toward hardware root of trust, robust key management, measured boot, and verification chains embedded within the data and throughout the hardware.
Timeline and Upcoming Milestones
The official schedule indicates a commercial launch of Athena1 in the second half of 2027. Ahead, Rhea1 will achieve key milestones: production at TSMC, samples early 2026, and deployment in JUPITER. As Athena1’s availability approaches, detailed specifications will be released, along with evaluation programs for government clients and industrial partners. Meanwhile, SiPearl continues to expand its team and pursue Series B funding to support its roadmap.
This announcement sends a clear message: Europe refuses to cede leadership in high-performance silicon, and aims to do so on its own terms—prioritizing security, sustainability, and supply chain control. Athena1 is, as its founder notes, the “perfect complement” to Rhea1 for cementing Europe’s strategic independence at the hardware level.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the key difference between SiPearl’s Athena1 and Rhea1?
Rhea1 is a supercomputing and AI inference processor with 80 Arm Neoverse V1 cores, 4 stacks of HBM, 4 DDR5 interfaces (2DPC), and 104 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. It is already in production at TSMC, with samples expected early 2026. In contrast, Athena1 is a tailored dual-use version with variants from 16 to 80 cores, emphasizing security and integrity. Its commercial release is slated for the second half of 2027.
Why does relocating Athena1’s packaging to Europe matter?
Because advanced packaging has become a critical point in the value chain—especially with HBM and heterogeneous integration. Moving this process to Europe bolsters resilience, reduces dependencies, and fosters local industrial expertise. This is vital for technological sovereignty and for fast-tracking certifications for government, defense, and aerospace applications.
What practical applications are envisioned for Athena1 in dual-use environments?
SiPearl mentions secure communications and intelligence, cryptography and encryption, edge processing in land, air, and sea vehicles, tactical networks, and electronic detection. In these domains, latency, security, data integrity, and energy efficiency are paramount, with the additional requirement of no backdoors or kill switches.
How does Arm’s software ecosystem support the adoption of Athena1 and Rhea1?
The mature Arm ecosystem—including compilers, libraries, and tools—facilitates migration and optimization for HPC and AI applications. For Rhea1, this support enables leveraging SVE (2×256-bit per core), integrated HBM memory, and PCIe Gen 5 connectivity. For Athena1, compatibility and support are crucial in validation, certification, and deployment within government, defense, and aerospace sectors.
More information at SiPearl.