The race to have the most powerful AI seems to be never-ending. The UK is now trying to take that crown with a new AI supercomputer that will be able to make 200 quadrillion calculations in only a minute.
This was made possible through a partnership between the University of Cambridge, UK Research & Innovation, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and global tech leaders Intel and Dell Technologies.
The UK government is spending $273 million on this ultra-powerful computer and it will be called Isambard-AI. Needless to say, this will rank among the most powerful supercomputers around the world. It is set to become operational during mid-2024 at the University of Bristol.
Nvidia is going to be making a lot of money out of this since Isambard AI will be powered by over 5000 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. This many GPUs will allow Isambard AI to achieve over 21 exaflops of AI performance or over 21 quintillion floating point operations. This raw performance will be aimed at training Large Language Models (LLMs), similar to ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Isambard is going to be 10 times faster than the UK’s current most powerful supercomputer, according to the University of Bristol. It will be situated in a “self-cooled, self-contained data center” inside Bristol’s National Composites Center.
This was announced during the recent UK’s AI Safety Summit which was attended by several delegatories around the globe. Leaders from various regions, including the United States, convened to deliberate on the future of AI and the associated risks.
Isambard-AI is slated for future integration with other supercomputers in the UK, aimed at enhancing its overall performance. As stated by Simon McIntosh-Smith from the University of Bristol, once operational, Isambard-AI is poised to become one of the most potent AI systems for open science, both nationally and globally.
Science, Innovation, and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan while speaking at the AI Safety Summit said: “This means giving Britain’s leading researchers and scientific talent access to the tools they need to delve into how this complicated technology works. That is why we are investing in building UK’s supercomputers, making sure we cement our place as a world-leader in AI safety.”
