- Edinburgh nominated to host next-generation compute system,
50 times more powerful than our current top-end system
- national facility – one of the world’s most powerful – will
help unlock major advances in AI, medical research, climate
science and clean energy innovation, boosting economic growth
- new exascale system follows AI supercomputer in Bristol
in transforming the future of UK science and tech and providing
high-skilled jobs
Edinburgh is poised to host a next-generation compute system
amongst the fastest in the world, with the potential to
revolutionise breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, medicine,
and clean low-carbon energy.
The city has been named as the preferred choice to host the new
national exascale facility, as the UK government continues to
invest in the country’s world-leading computing capacity –
crucial to the running of modern economies and cutting-edge
scientific research.
Exascale is the next frontier in computing power, where systems
are built to carry out extremely complex functions with increased
speed and precision. This in turn enables researchers to
accelerate their work into some of the most pressing challenges
we face, including the development of new drugs, and advances in
nuclear fusion to produce potentially limitless clean low-carbon
energy.
The exascale system hosted at the University of Edinburgh will be
able to carry out these complicated workloads while also
supporting critical research into AI safety and development,
as the UK seeks to safely harness its potential to improve lives
across the country.
Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary said:
If we want the UK to remain a global leader in scientific
discovery and technological innovation, we need to power up the
systems that make those breakthroughs possible.
This new UK government funded exascale computer in Edinburgh will
provide British researchers with an ultra-fast, versatile
resource to support pioneering work into AI safety, life-saving
drugs, and clean low-carbon energy. It is part of our £900
million investment in uplifting the UK’s computing capacity,
helping us forge a stronger Union, drive economic growth, create
the high-skilled jobs of the future and unlock bold new
discoveries that improve people’s lives.
Computing power is measured in ‘flops’ – floating point
operations – which means the number of arithmetic calculations
that a computer can perform every second. An exascale
system will be 50 times more powerful than our current top-end
system, ARCHER2,
which is also housed in Edinburgh.
The investment will mean new high-skilled jobs for Edinburgh,
while the new national facility would vastly upgrade the UK’s
research, technology and innovation capabilities, helping to
boost economic growth, productivity and prosperity across the
country in support of the Prime Minister’s priorities.
UK Research and Innovation Chief Executive Professor Dame
Ottoline Leyser said:
State-of-the-art compute infrastructure is critical to unlock
advances in research and innovation, with diverse applications
from drug design through to energy security and extreme weather
modelling, benefiting communities across the UK.
This next phase of investment, located at Edinburgh, will help to
keep the UK at the forefront of emerging technologies and
facilitate the collaborations needed to explore and develop
game-changing insights across disciplines.
Secretary of State for Scotland, , said:
We have already seen the vital work being carried out
by ARCHER2 in
Edinburgh and this new exascale system, backed by the UK
government, will keep Scotland at the forefront of science and
innovation. As well as supporting researchers in their critical
work on AI safety this will bring
highly skilled jobs to Edinburgh and support economic growth for
the region.
The announcement follows the news earlier this month that Bristol
will play host to a new AI supercomputer, named
Isambard-AI, which
will be one of the most powerful for AI in Europe. The cluster
will act as part of the national AI Research Resource
(AIRR) to maximise the
potential of AI and support critical
work around the safe development and use of the technology.
Plans for both the exascale compute and the AIRR were first announced in
March, as part of a £900 million investment to upgrade the UK’s
next-generation compute capacity, and will deliver on two of the
recommendations set out in the independent review into the Future
of Compute.
Both announcements come as the UK prepares to host the world’s
first AI Safety Summit on 1
and 2 November. The summit will bring together leading countries,
technology organisations, academics and civil society to ensure
we have global consensus on the risks emerging from the most
immediate and rapid advances in AI and how they are
managed, while also maximising the benefits of the safe use of
the technology to improve lives.
