Forschungszentrum Jülich

Stories

Battery self-tests synced to the minute cause grid frequency dips

Led the study, with the University of Cologne and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; the one-minute pattern appeared in 12 grids on five continents

A Jülich-led study found the one-minute dip in 12 of the power grids it examined, on five continents, including continental Europe, Britain, Korea, Australia and both main US interconnections. The cause is battery backup units that test their power supply at the top of every minute, with clocks set over the internet.

Updated Oct 31

Racing toward the digital brain

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Operating JUPITER supercomputer for brain simulation

Scientists at Germany's Jülich Research Centre demonstrated in mid-January 2026 that Europe's most powerful supercomputer can simulate 20 billion spiking neurons—matching the scale of the human cerebral cortex. The team plans to combine this capability with anatomical brain data to run full-cortex simulations, a technical milestone that has eluded researchers since the field's founding in the 1980s.

Updated May 22