One of the core tech partners for a national tech research programme has been signed to an agreement to ensure that vast swathes of data sets can be stored securely
Government’s national supercomputing facility for artificial intelligence research has retained Dell to fulfil an eight-figure contract for the storage of vast amounts of important data.
The UK AI Research Resource (AIRR) provides researchers and industry experts with specialised infrastructure capacity via two supercomputers: the Dawn system at the University of Cambridge; and the bigger and more powerful Isambard-AI facility at the University of Bristol, which is supported by the Isambard 3 sister platform.
Alongside the two universities, the AIRR initiative is supported by government, non-departmental body UK Research and Innovation, and four tech vendors: HPE; Nvidia; Intel; Dell.
The latter of these entered into a five-year contract with the University of Bristol on 22 December. The deal, which is valued at £11.6m, covers the provision of a “data facility” for the Isambard-AI platform.
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“The UK AI Research Resource lacks a national facility for long-term storage of critical AI datasets when they are not actively processed,” the contact award notice said. “The requirement is to establish a secure, scalable, and sovereign data storage solution that integrates with existing compute resources – Isambard-AI and Isambard 3 – supports compliance with cybersecurity standards, and enables future expansion to meet growing research and collaboration needs.”
According to the University of Bristol, Isambard-AI is “the UK’s fastest and most powerful supercomputer” – and ranks 11th globally.
In October, the government issued commercial documents indicating that, in several months’ time, it intends to enter into a four-year £250m engagement with “a cloud provider [that will be] contracted to deliver scalable, state-of-the-art AI compute, delivered through a flexible cloud service”. The chosen supplier will be expected to help deliver a twentyfold increase in the computing power that underpins AI research.
