The United Kingdom has announced a £225 million investment, equivalent to $273 million, to build a giant artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer, highlighting the country’s ambitions to excel in technology as it competes with the United States and China.
The supercomputer, named Isambard-AI, is being developed by the University of Bristol, this announcement coincides with the AI Safety Summit in the UK, where leaders from various countries gather to discuss the future of AI and its potential risks.
The UK government stated, “Isambard-AI is the most advanced supercomputer in the country, ten times faster than the fastest current machine in the UK.”
The supercomputer incorporates 5,448 GH200 Grace Hopper chips, specialized AI chips for high-performance computing made by Nvidia. This allows it to perform over 200 quintillion calculations per second.
Nvidia stated, “The supercomputer can achieve over 21 exaflops of AI performance or more than 21 quintillion floating-point operations per second for AI applications, such as training large language models.” Hewlett Packard is helping to build the computer and will connect it to another recently announced supercomputer named Dawn, which includes over a thousand Intel chips and uses liquid cooling to reduce power consumption.
Michelle Donelan, the UK’s Minister for Science, Innovation, and Technology, previously announced, “AI contributes over £3.7 billion to the UK’s economy and is employed by more than 50,000 people. Investment in AI research resources in Bristol drives scientific discoveries and keeps the UK at the forefront of AI development.”
The UK government hopes that these supercomputers will make breakthroughs in fusion energy, healthcare, and climate modeling. Starting in the summer of 2024, the government plans to operate these devices to help researchers analyze advanced AI models for testing safety benefits and achieving breakthroughs in drug discovery and clean energy.
Simon Smith, a professor in Bristol and the director of the national Isambard Research Facility, said, “Isambard-AI is a huge leap forward for AI computing power in the UK.”
The government had previously allocated £1 billion to invest in the semiconductor industry to secure chip supplies in the country and reduce its reliance on East Asia for critical microchips.
