Organisations from across the UK will be able to use Isambard-AI to harness the power of AI, the main driver of emerging technologies such as training large language models, big data and robotics.
£225m investment from the Government has created Isambard-AI, the UK’s fastest and most sustainable supercomputer.
Scientists will be able to use the world-class equipment based at the University of Bristol’s National Composites Centre for research that has not been possible in the UK until now, with organisations such as the UK’s AI Safety Institute expected to be amongst the first to harness its capabilities for AI research.
With the latest technologies, including HPE Slingshot 11 interconnect and direct liquid cooling solutions with highly integrated, heterogeneous CPU-GPU systems from NVIDIA, it is one of the most efficient supercomputers that has ever been built.
Following the UK Government investment, with thanks to HPE modular data centre technology, the Isambard-AI phase one with HPE Cray EX2500 supercomputer and168 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips has been delivered in record time, signalling the speed at which AI is advancing and recognising the value of having a national AI Research Resource in place.
The University of Bristol is one of the top universities in the UK for AI research and scientific computing. It is home to two Centres for Doctoral Training in AI: the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Interactive Artificial Intelligence and The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Practice-Oriented Artificial Intelligence; as well as two new national AI research hubs: The AI for Collective Intelligence Hub and The Mathematical and Computational Foundations of AI – Information theory for distributed AI Hub.
The Isambard-AI project is being led by Bristol experts Professor McIntosh-Smith and Dr Sadaf Alam with their team at the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS), working in collaboration with researchers from across the GW4 alliance universities and commercial partners.
The city of Bristol is fast becoming a national deep tech hub, home to several university spin-out companies at the leading edge of quantum and AI, and incubator facilities such as Science Creates and the upcoming development at Temple Quarter. The new Bristol facility will be used by a wide range of organisations from across the UK to harness the power of AI, which is already the main driver of emerging technologies such as training large language models (LLMs), big data and robotics. The new supercomputing facility will also play a vital role in important areas such as accelerating automated drug discovery and climate research.
The Government’s new Frontier AI Taskforce will have priority access to support its work to mitigate the risks posed by the most advanced forms of AI, including national security from the development of bioweapons and cyberattacks. The resource will also support the work of the AI Safety Institute, as it develops a programme of research looking at the safety of frontier AI models and supports government policy with this analysis.
The National Composites Centre at the Bristol and Bath Science Park is one of seven research centres across the UK that form the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, helping to turn great ideas into reality by providing access to world-class research and development facilities and expertise that would otherwise be out of reach for many businesses in the UK.