- A new supercomputer is to be installed at the Daresbury-based Hartree Centre, as part of a £210 million (US$264.9 million) programme.
- The programme provides UK industry access to state-of-the-art digital technologies and expertise and is complementary to investments in the wider AI Research Resource (AIRR).
- It will support the HNCDI’s rapidly expanding supercomputing and AI activities and will be installed later this year.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has signed an agreement with Lenovo for the installation of a powerful new supercomputer at the STFC Hartree Centre.
The supercomputer
The new supercomputer is 10 times more powerful than its predecessor while using less electricity thanks to Lenovo’s direct water cooling. The new supercomputer will power AI research for the UK industry.
This supercomputer is part of the Hartree Centre’s £210 million (US$264.9 million) Digital Innovation (HNCDI) programme, which provides the UK with access to state-of-the-art digital technologies and expertise and is complementary to investments in the wider AI Research Resource (AIRR).
It will support HNCDI’s rapidly expanding supercomputing and AI activities and will be installed later this year at the new £30 million supercomputing centre currently under construction.
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Lenovo’s supercomputing processing power
The Lenovo ThinkSystem Neptune has a computing speed of 44.7 quadrillion operations and can perform more than 44 quadrillion floating point operations per second.
The new GPU-based system (graphics processing unit) is perfect for AI workloads, and marks a significant leap in the Hartree Centre’s capabilities, with ten times the processing power of its current system, Scafell Pike.
Besides, it will be more energy efficient, take up less space, and use less power per unit of performance.
The new supercomputer uses innovative warm water cooling that can reduce energy demands by up to 40% while boosting performance by up to 10%.
Powering the UK Industry with AI
The Hartree Centre is located at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory in science-tech Daresbury in the Liverpool city region and is the only supercomputing centre in the UK dedicated to industry engagement. This capability will drive forward innovation in industry use cases and applications.
Its HNCDI programme plays a vital role in providing businesses with the skills and technical knowledge to adopt emerging digital technologies, including supercomputing, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.
Through the use of these advanced supercomputing technologies, it enables productivity, innovation, and growth in UK organisations.
