A groundbreaking ceremony has been held to mark the official commencement of a new £30m supercomputer centre development in Cheshire, England.
Located in Daresbury, the supercomputer centre forms part of the Hartree Centre’s £210m Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation.
Once completed, the facility will host the latest in new supercomputing artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, with the potential for further expansion built in.
This will allow the Hartree Centre to grow its capability in the future without the need for additional major construction, its partners say.
‘At the very forefront’
Commenting on the development, Professor Kate Royse, director of the Hartree Centre, said: “This is an incredibly exciting day for the Hartree Centre, and we are fully committed to providing an environment where UK science and businesses can be at the very forefront of global research and development in the very latest digital technologies.
“Providing access to technologies, such as AI and quantum computing, enables businesses to increase productivity and achieve success, to the benefit of our economy, both here in the north-west and nationally.”
Paul Vernon, head of Daresbury Laboratory, said: “Our new supercomputing centre is a significant development in our mission to provide UK businesses with access to the vital infrastructure and expertise that will help them to grow and succeed on a global scale.
“It will help UK businesses drive productivity, accelerating growth and job creation through the use of advanced digital technologies.
“As we strengthen our commitment to breaking down barriers to technologies such as AI and quantum computing, we are enabling industry to carry out invaluable cutting-edge research, with long-term, tangible benefits to our economy and society.”
The centre will initially be capable of providing 80 to 100 petaflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second.
The UK is home to a large number of quantum computing start-ups that are raising significant amounts of early-stage capital, such as Oxford Ionics’ £30m Series A.
Image: Representatives from the Hartree Centre, Daresbury Laboratory, and Russell WBHO on the new supercomputer centre site in Cheshire. Credit: Science and Technology Facilities Council
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