December 4, 2024 — GW4 Isambard 3, a world-class supercomputing service for AI and high-performance computing (HPC), officially launched this week to drive innovative new scientific research in a wide range of fields, including clean energy has been. , to design optimal configurations of wind farms, both on land and on water, and to model fusion reactors that will provide green energy in the future.
The new £10m supercomputer was developed in partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), NVIDIA and Arm as part of the GW4 University of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter collaboration, and incorporates the latest new technology. is used. High-performance Arm Neoverse-based NVIDIA Grace CPU superchip delivers production systems with over 55,000 cores. The new system is one of the world’s first systems based on NVIDIA Grace, with more than six times the computational performance and energy efficiency of Isambard 2.
Featuring the latest sustainability technologies and practices, Isambard 3 is designed to operate as one of the world’s most energy-efficient and carbon-neutral CPU-based supercomputers, reducing waste energy could potentially be reused to heat surrounding buildings.
Isambard 3 is hosted in the self-cooled, self-contained HPE Performance Optimization Data Center (POD) at the National Composites Center at Bristol and Bath Science Park. The site is also home to Isambard-AI, a new £225m national artificial intelligence research resource led by the University of Bristol that is set to become the UK’s fastest and most powerful supercomputer.
The Isambard 3 supercomputer includes an expanded and upgraded multi-architecture comparison system that enables scientifically rigorous performance comparisons and benchmarks between different computer architectures. It also features a high-performance storage system from HPE, providing expanded input/output (I/O) capabilities with intelligent tiering to support data-intensive workloads such as AI model training.
Originally sponsored by the Japan Meteorological Agency to evaluate the performance of weather forecasting and climate prediction modeling on Arm-based CPUs, GW4 Isambard 1 and 2 will be used for research across a wide range of scientific fields, including next-generation healthcare research and development. It was done. Medical innovation. The research conducted on Isambard has also been crucial in the fight against COVID-19, helping scientists understand how it interacts with the virus and contributing to the development of vaccines.
Isambard 3 extends these capabilities, giving researchers across the UK and their international collaborators access to cutting-edge technology that delivers game-changing improvements in performance and energy efficiency.
Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, Director of the Bristol Center for Supercomputing (BriCS) at the University of Bristol and Principal Investigator of the Isambard supercomputer, said: And we have enabled important developments across sectors such as sustainable net zero, green energy and healthcare. With its advanced capabilities, Isambard 3 will take this research to the next level, supporting collaboration with academic and industrial partners around the world and accelerating understanding in areas such as artificial intelligence and scientific simulation. ”
Professor Evelyn Welch, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Bristol and Chair of the GW4 Council, said: HPC resources that enable cutting-edge, world-leading research. We are very much looking forward to the launch of this system and the scientific advances that will accompany it. ”
Dr Joanna Jenkinson, GW4 Alliance Director, said: “Building on the success of the GW4 supercomputer Isambard, Isambard 3 is the result of a collaboration between the GW4 institutions and our partners Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NVIDIA, and Arm, demonstrating academic and scientific power. Industry Partnership. We are excited to launch Isambard 3 and look forward to seeing the research and innovation capabilities this new supercomputer will accelerate.”
Matt Harris, HPE’s senior vice president and managing director for the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa, said: Supporting Britain’s ambitions to become a world leader in science and technology. Isambard 3’s computing power will significantly enhance research and innovation across the region. ”
said John Josephakis, Global Vice President of Sales and Business Development for HPC and Supercomputing at NVIDIA. “Energy-efficient supercomputing is essential to tackling global challenges while minimizing environmental impact. Isambard 3 systems at GW4 Group universities are now powered by NVIDIA Grace. , one of the world’s most sustainable supercomputers, enabling high-performance computing for complex scientific and research applications.”
David Lecomber, Director of HPC, Infrastructure at Arm, said: “Isambard 3 will enable a new generation of groundbreaking research by the GW4 community on society’s most important challenges in areas such as healthcare and clean energy.” We are proud to work with Enterprise. This leverages the performance and power efficiency of the Arm Neoverse-based NVIDIA Grace CPU superchip to accelerate important research advances for a sustainable energy future. ”
Source: University of Bristol
