The UK’s most powerful AI supercomputer has launched in Bristol.
The £225m new Isambard-AI facility, developed by the University of Bristol in close partnership with HPE and NVIDIA, is able to process in one second what it would take the entire global population 80 years to achieve.
This will allow researchers and industry to harness the huge potential of AI in fields such as robotics, big data, climate research and drug discovery.
The supercomputer, which is built and run by the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) and based at NCC on the Bristol and Bath Science Park, was officially launched by Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology.
It is a key part of the UK Government’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), intended to boost the country’s capabilities in responsible and leading AI development.
Isambard-AI, alongside the Dawn supercomputer at the University of Cambridge, will see the UK’s compute capacity increase to 23 AI ExaFLOPs – the equivalent of everyone in the UK spending 85,000 years doing what the full AIRR will do in one second.
That means everyone in the UK would have needed to start calculating more than 80,000 years before Stonehenge was built – without taking a break.
Named after revolutionary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel – a nod to the region’s historic contributions to engineering and innovation – Isambard-AI was built in partnership with HPE, using next-generation supercomputing with HPE Cray EX that is optimised for AI workloads with 5,400 cutting-edge NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips.
Not only is it the sixth-fastest supercomputer in Europe, it is also the fourth-greenest in the world according to the Green500 list. Built to be incredibly energy efficient, the facility exclusively uses zero carbon electricity. It has been built in a low-carbon, modular data centre, installed by Oakland Construction, leading to a reduction in carbon emissions of around 72% compared to traditional build methods. It also utilises HPE’s 100% fan-less, direct liquid cooling technology to deliver up to 90% reduction in cooling power consumption. There is also potential to recycle the waste heat output for nearby homes and businesses.
The University of Bristol was chosen to host the new national supercomputer research facility thanks to its long history of world-leading AI research and expertise in high performance computing.
The university will offer a new fully-funded government-backed master’s degree in artificial intelligence through the Spärck AI scholarship.
Professor Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Bristol, said: “This is a pivotal moment for AI in the UK and the University of Bristol is proud to be at the heart of it. We have a long history of AI research, innovation and education and now we are home to the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputer.
“Together with HPE and NVIDIA, we have delivered this remarkable national facility at pace, in just under 24 months. Due to its impressive power, working at speeds 100,000 times faster than an average laptop, we will soon see Isambard AI deliver transformational research and breakthroughs that will ultimately improve people’s lives.”
Researchers at the University of Bristol are using Isambard-AI to help analyse recordings from wearable cameras and other smart devices to help people perform tasks better at home – something which holds immense promise for assisting dementia patients in the future.
Videos contain far more information than images or text, but research in video understanding has been limited due to the hardware needs of handling the sheer volume of such data. This new capability of Isambard-AI is opening up exciting possibilities, including capturing footage directly from individuals in the early stages of dementia and training an AI model to help trigger stronger memories later on.
Other examples of research enabled by the supercomputer include using AI to analyse MRI scans – meaning cases of cancer can be identified sooner and patients can then be given personalised treatment plans; improving our understanding of over 30 key proteins involved in a number of diseases to help develop future treatments; and the monitoring and analysis of dairy cattle herds to detect changes in social behaviour which can serve as early indicators of subclinical diseases.