The United Kingdom has just taken a major step in the world race for artificial intelligence. Isambard-Ai, the most powerful AI supercomputer ever made accessible to the British public, was officially put into service in Bristol. With its 21 exaflops of calculation power, this machine of 225 million pounds sterling can treat 21 quinstillions of operations per second – such an astronomical number that it exceeds human imagination.
A technological giant at the service of public research
Called in tribute to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous Victorian engineer, this technological mastodon hosts 5,448 superpudes Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper in a secure installation north of Bristol. To put this power in perspective, a classic smartphone only performs a few thousand billions of operations per second – a million times less than this digital titan.
The investment is colossal: nearly a million sterling pounds per month just for electricity, mainly of nuclear origin. But according to Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science and Technology, this “raw calculation power will save lives, create jobs and help us reach more quickly our ambitions of zero net emission”.
A strategy of technological sovereignty
This initiative is part of a wider strategy of 2 billion pounds sterling aimed at establishing British “sovereignty of AI”. Until now, only giant technological companies have had such a power of calculation, creating an imbalance in access to innovation in artificial intelligence.
« One of the fears linked to AI is that some people have technology and know-how and others not“Explains Dima Damen, computer vision professor at the University of Bristol. “” Our greatest duty as researchers is to ensure that data and knowledge are accessible to all. »
Admittedly, Isambard-Ai remains modest against American giants-Elon Musk’s supercomputer in Tennessee displays a power 20 times higher. But this machine places the United Kingdom in 11th in the world and opens up unprecedented perspectives for European public research.
Revolutionary applications already underway
The first projects fed by Isambard-Ai reveal the transformer potential of this technology. Dima Damen develops a system capable of predicting human behavior in real time from thousands of hours of videos analyzing the movements. Thanks to portable cameras, this model could revolutionize security on construction sites or help the police to anticipate crowd movements.
« The algorithm could use real -time data to give an early warning indicating that in the next two minutes, something is likely to happen“, Specifies the researcher, while emphasizing the need for transparency in the face of the ethical implications of such technologies.
An aerial view of the construction site of Isambard-Ai, illustrating the magnitude of the construction of the modular data center and the rapid progress made in the creation of the most powerful IA supercomputer in the United Kingdom. Credits: NVIDIA
From agriculture to medicine: a silent revolution
Other teams use this power for more unexpected applications. In the Somerset, researchers film a herd of 24 -hour cows to cause an AI capable of detecting the first signs of mastitis, a painful infection affecting milk production. “” The farmer is obviously very interested in his herd, but he does not necessarily have time to observe all the cows continuously“Explains Andrew Dowsey, professor of health data science.
Even more crucial, James Pope uses Isambard-Ai to fight racial biases in skin cancer detection tools. Its “quadrillions, even quintillions of calculations” have revealed that current smartphone applications work better on clear skin, raising major concerns about the equity of diagnostics based on AI.
The future of British research
In association with Dawn, another supercomputer based in Cambridge, Isambard-Ai forms the backbone of an ambitious strategy. The objective: to transform research into AI to combat climate change, improve NHS performance and stimulate medical and technological innovation.
This initiative marks a turning point in the British approach to artificial intelligence. Rather than leaving the field free to private technological giants, the United Kingdom is focusing on a public good intended to democratize access to the power of new generation calculation. A strategy that could well redefine the balance of forces in world IA research.
