GW4 Isambard 3, a world-class supercomputer service for AI and high-performance computing (HPC), has officially launched this week, driving innovative new, scientific research in a wide range of areas, including in clean energy, designing optimal configuration of wind farms on both land and water, and modelling fusion reactors to provide green energy in the future.
The new £10 million supercomputer, developed as part of a collaboration between the GW4 universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, and in partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), NVIDIA and Arm, utilises the latest novel technologies, including the new high-performance Arm® Neoverse™-based NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip, to provide a production system of over 55,000 cores. The new system – one of the first in the world based on NVIDIA Grace – has more than six times the computational performance and energy efficiency of Isambard 2.
Employing the latest in sustainability techniques and practices, Isambard 3 has been designed to operate as one of the most energy-efficient, lowest carbon emitting CPU-based supercomputers in the world, with the potential to reuse waste energy to heat surrounding buildings.
Isambard 3 is hosted in a self-cooled, self-contained HPE Performance Optimized Data Center (POD) at the National Composites Centre on the Bristol and Bath Science Park. The site is also home to Isambard-AI, a new, national £225 million Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, due to become the UK’s fastest and most powerful supercomputer, and led by the University of Bristol.
The Isambard 3 supercomputer includes an expanded and upgraded multi-architecture comparison system to enable scientifically rigorous performance comparisons and benchmarking across diverse computer architectures. It also features a high-performance storage system from HPE, which delivers expanded input/output (I/O) capabilities with intelligent tiering to support data-intensive workloads, such as AI model training.
Originally hosted by the Met Office, to evaluate the performance of weather forecasting and climate prediction modelling on Arm-based CPUs, GW4 Isambard 1 & 2 were used for research across a wide range of scientific areas, including investigating next-generation healthcare, and developing innovations in medicine. Research conducted on Isambard was also vital in the fight against COVID-19, contributing to the development of vaccines by helping scientists understand how they would interact with the virus.
Isambard 3 will expand on these capabilities, providing researchers across the UK, and their international collaborators, with access to cutting-edge technology that delivers a transformational increase in performance and energy efficiency.
Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, Director of the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) at the University of Bristol, and Principle Investigator for the Isambard supercomputers, said: “Our work across GW4 Isambard 1 & 2 has already pushed the boundaries of scientific research, and we have enabled significant developments across areas such as sustainable net zero, green energy and healthcare. With its advanced capabilities, Isambard 3 will take this research to the next level, supporting collaborations with our academic and industrial partners all over the world, and accelerating our understanding in areas such as artificial intelligence and scientific simulations.”
Professor Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of Bristol and Chair of GW4 Council, said: “With Isambard 3 now officially online, we have a real opportunity to accelerate the UK’s role as a scientific superpower and provide researchers with access to a HPC resource which will enable world-leading, cutting-edge research. We are tremendously excited to see the launch of this system and the scientific breakthroughs that will come with it.”
Dr Joanna Jenkinson, GW4 Alliance Director, said: “Building on the success of GW4 supercomputer Isambard, Isambard 3 is a product of collaboration between the GW4 institutions and our partners, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NVIDIA and Arm, and demonstrates the power of academic and industrial partnerships. We are delighted to see the launch of Isambard 3 and look forward to witnessing the accelerated research and innovation capabilities generated by this new supercomputer.”
Matt Harris, SVP & Managing Director for UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa at HPE, said: “We are proud to see the GW4 Isambard 3 supercomputer go online, a testament to our commitment to advancing high-performance computing and artificial intelligence and supporting the UK’s ambition to be a global leader in science and technology. Isambard 3’s compute capability will significantly enhance research and innovation across the region.”
John Josephakis, Global VP of Sales and Business Development for HPC and Supercomputing at NVIDIA, said: "Energy-efficient supercomputing is crucial for tackling global challenges while minimizing environmental impact. The GW4 group of universities’ Isambard 3 system, now powered by NVIDIA Grace, enables high-performance computing for complex scientific and research applications on one of the world’s most sustainable supercomputers.”
David Lecomber, Director of HPC, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm, said: “Isambard 3 will be enabling a new generation of groundbreaking research by the GW4 community into society’s most important challenges in areas such as healthcare and clean energy. Arm is proud to collaborate with GW4, NVIDIA, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise on Isambard 3, which will harness the performance and power efficiency of the Arm Neoverse-based NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip to drive important research advancements for the future of sustainable energy."
Image Credit: Christy Nunns/University of Bristol
Our work across GW4 Isambard 1 & 2 has already pushed the boundaries of scientific research, and we have enabled significant developments across areas such as sustainable net zero, green energy and healthcare.
With its advanced capabilities, Isambard 3 will take this research to the next level, supporting collaborations with our academic and industrial partners all over the world, and accelerating our understanding in areas such as artificial intelligence and scientific simulations.”
