Isambard-AI, the UK’s Most Powerful Supercomputer, Officially Launched in Bristol
The Isambard-AI supercomputer, the nation’s most advanced system to date, has gone live at the University of Bristol. Costing £225 million and developed in collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA, Isambard-AI can complete in a single second what the global human population would require 80 years to achieve. This is a significant leap in the UK’s AI capacity, allowing researchers and industry partners to harness huge processing power for applications in healthcare, climate science, robotics, and more.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle launched the system amid government plans to invest further in AI Growth Zones in Scotland and Wales. The launch also signals the full activation of the UK AI Research Resource (AIRR), designed to revolutionize fields such as early cancer detection, vaccine development, climate modeling, and sustainable energy discovery. Isambard-AI will operate alongside the Dawn supercomputer at the University of Cambridge, increasing the UK's public AI compute capacity to 23 exaflops, more than all other UK supercomputers combined.
Cutting-edge Technology and Sustainability at the Heart of Isambard-AI
- The system is built on the HPE Cray EX platform and powered by 5,448 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. It provides unrivaled processing speeds, 100,000 times faster than a typical laptop, and an internal network that is 2,000 times faster than average home broadband.
- Isambard-AI is housed at the Bristol and Bath Science Park in a modular, liquid-cooled data center, one of the greenest of its kind in Europe. Its energy-efficient design uses zero-carbon electricity and direct liquid cooling, cutting energy use by up to 90% and reducing carbon emissions by approximately 72% compared to traditional builds.
- The supercomputer also features nearly 25 petabytes of storage and weighs about 150 tonnes, the equivalent of 25 African elephants. There are plans to repurpose the waste heat generated for nearby homes and businesses in north Bristol.
- The system is already being used for real-world breakthroughs: analyzing MRI scans for early cancer detection, developing AI models to assist dementia patients using smart wearables, and monitoring livestock health through machine learning. Researchers highlight rapid advancements in personalized medicine, protein modeling, and climate research, thanks to the scale and speed of Isambard-AI.
With this landmark launch, the UK takes a major step into the era of AI-powered research and innovation, enabling capabilities and discoveries that were previously out of reach for its institutions and industries.