Britain has announced its intention to invest £225 million, equivalent to $273 million, in building a massive computer system powered by artificial intelligence, demonstrating the country’s ambitions to lead in technology and compete with the United States and China.
The University of Bristol is constructing the giant computing system known as Isambard-AI. This announcement coincides with a summit in Britain to discuss the safety of artificial intelligence, where leaders from different countries gather to discuss the future of smart technology and the risks associated with it.
The British government stated that the Isambard-AI system is the most advanced computer in the country, operating ten times faster than any current computer in Britain.
The system includes 5,448 GH200 Grace Hopper chips, specialized artificial intelligence chips for high-performance computing applications produced by Nvidia, enabling it to execute over 200 quadrillion calculations per second.
Nvidia confirmed that the computer can achieve artificial intelligence performance exceeding 21 exaflops, or more than 21 quintillion floating-point operations per second, for AI applications such as training large language models.
Hewlett Packard is assisting in building the computer, with the aim of connecting it to the new giant computer named “Dawn”, which includes over a thousand Intel chips and uses a water cooling system to reduce power consumption.
In a previous statement about the system, Michelle Donelan, the Minister for Science, Innovation, and Technology in the country, stated that artificial intelligence plays a significant role in the UK economy, exceeding £3.7 billion and employing over 50,000 people.
She explained that investing in artificial intelligence in Bristol enhances scientific progress and maintains the UK’s leading position in developing this advanced technology.
The British government aims for the giant computers to integrate into fields such as energy, healthcare, and climate change modeling.
The government announced its intention to operate devices that assist researchers in analyzing advanced artificial intelligence models starting in the summer of 2024. The purpose of this is to test the safety benefits and achieve breakthroughs in drug discovery and clean energy.
Simon Smith, a professor at the University of Bristol and director of the Isambard National Research Center, stated: “Isambard-AI represents a huge leap in computational power for artificial intelligence in the UK.”
Previously, the government allocated one billion pounds to invest in the electronics industry resembling semiconductors in an effort to ensure chip availability in the country and reduce its reliance on East Asia for critical microchips.
