UK Builds Dawn and Isambard-AI Supercomputers in Push for AI Research and Exascale System

Intel, Dell, and University of Cambridge join forces to build Dawn, the UK's fastest supercomputer, with Nvidia backing Isambard-AI, touted as the country's most powerful supercomputer. These efforts advance the UK closer to a national exascale system, with full technical specifics of both supercomputers expected to be revealed at the SC23 supercomputing conference.

Intel, Dell and the University of Cambridge are collaborating to create Dawn, which is intended to be the UK's fastest supercomputer. This initiative forms part of the British government's AI Research Resource and will address demanding workloads in areas such as academic and industrial research, healthcare, engineering, and climate modelling.
The Isambard-AI supercomputer, backed by Nvidia, is touted as the UK's most powerful, aiming for 200 petaFLOPS of performance. The robust machine will significantly advance the UK towards its goal of having a national exascale system.
The full technical and performance details of Dawn will be announced at the SC23 supercomputing conference, while it is known that Isambard-AI will be approximately ten times faster than Archer2, the UK's current leading supercomputer.
Despite the anticipation for both supercomputers, phase 2 of Dawn's project is uncertain. The second phase promises to deliver ten times the performance of the first phase, significantly boosting the UK's AI capability.
Both supercomputers, Dawn and Isambard-AI, will join forces to form the AI Research Resource (AIRR) - a national facility that aids researchers in AI projects. Isambard-AI will cost £225 million ($273 million) and will be based on Nvidia's GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips.