Exploring the Isambard AI supercomputer

Technology Now

The UK’s fastest supercomputer, the Isambard-AI, is due to be completed in Summer 2024. According to the teams involved, it will reach up to 200 quadrillion calculations per second, and will give researchers and industry leaders new possibilities in the UK: the opportunity to work with the huge potential AI has to offer in the fields of robotics, big data, climate research, and drug discovery.

Our guest this week is one of the project leaders: Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith from University of Bristol. We’ll be looking at how Isambard-AI will be an open hub for all AI research in the UK, powered by around five-and-a-half-thousand GPUs.

This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week we look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations and what we can learn from it.

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About the expert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonmcintoshsmith/?originalSubdomain=uk

Sources and statistics cited in this episode:
Supercomputer name first used - https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/tech-takes/history-of-supercomputing
Exascale barrier broke for the first time - https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/news-advisory/2023/03/4-ways-supercomputing-will-change-the-world.html
About Isambard-AI - https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/september/isambard-ai.html
How the UK Government has invested £225 million - https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/november/supercomputer-announcement.html#:~:text=Isambard%2DAI%20will%20offer%20capacity,climate%20research%20and%20drug%20discovery.%22
NASA’s 3D-printed engine to power space rockets - https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasas-3d-printed-rotating-detonation-rocket-engine-test-a-success/