UK enters the AI supercomputer race (at last)

The University of Bristol houses a supercomputer packed with over 5,000 Nvidia superchips, but this-the government promises-is just the start

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We saw the first sign of the UK government's Al strategy with the recent unveiling of the world's 11th most powerful supercomputer at the University of Bristol. Isambard-Al is formed of 12 cabinets, each packed with 440 Nvidia Grace Hopper superchips, and is now the cornerstone of Al research in Britain, being free of charge to academic researchers but also open to commercial use- for a price

“Today we put the most powerful computer system in the country into the hands of British researchers and entrepreneurs,” said the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Peter Kyle at the supercomputer’s launch. “Isambard-Al doesn’t just close the gap with our international competitors - it propels the UK to the forefront of AI discovery.”

He then added: “With our AI Research Resource [AIRR] now fully up and running, the UK is home to the raw computational horsepower that will save lives, create jobs and help us reach net zero ambitions faster.”

Beginning of the road

On the same day, Kyle unveiled the UK Compute Roadmap (tinyurl.com/373roadmap). This includes four “purposeful” steps, with the first being to build a “modern public computer ecosystem providing the capacity and certainty UK researchers and innovators need”.

The second is a rather simplistic step of “putting compute to use”, with the third a promise to build a “cutting-edge AI infrastructure so that the UK can play its role at the frontier of AI”. The fourth and final step is to create a “sovereign, secure and sustainable capability”.