The UK is developing its most powerful AI supercomputer. The UK government intends to invest $273 million in developing Isambard-AI, its most powerful supercomputer to date. When activated, it will take its place among the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers. Isambard-AI will be able to perform over 200 quadrillion calculations per second thanks to a slew of Nvidia superchips at its heart. It is scheduled to open at the University of Bristol in the summer of 2024.
The UK is developing its most powerful AI supercomputer
This supercomputer will be created with the assistance of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP), a company known for its laptop computers. It will be powered by over 5000 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, allowing it to attain AI performance of more than 21 exaflops. This is more than 21 quintillion floating-point operations per second, which is ideal for AI activities like building big language models.
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According to the University of Bristol, Isambard AI will be ten times quicker than the UK’s current fastest AI supercomputer. The computer will be hosted at Bristol’s National Composites Centre in a self-contained, self-cooled data centre.
But that isn’t all. Isambard AI will also be able to communicate with other supercomputers in the UK, allowing it to improve its performance even further. According to Simon McIntosh-Smith of the University of Bristol, this will make the supercomputer “one of the most powerful AI systems for open science anywhere” once it is operational.
The news about this supercomputer broke at the UK’s AI Safety Summit, which was attended by leaders from all across the world, including the United States. The discussion was called to explore the potential threats of artificial intelligence and how to mitigate them.
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