The UK government is to spend "£36 million to increase the power of one of the UK’s leading supercomputing centres".

Neil Brown

The £36m will go on 16GB of RAM.

Cambridge supercomputer set to get 6 times more powerful as government backs British AI innovation

£36 million government investment into AI supercomputer in Cambridge

GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Jo Hawkins

@neil I reckon they could get 32GB if they don't use amazon but postage will be 4 million

Dave Robinson

@neil
Cambridge is a good place to invest in AI and supercomputers. It'll be on the coast soon, which will reduce the cooling costs massively.

Pierric

@neil not if I outbid them first !

Otte Homan - remember Geordie

@neil I so detest this ... last year it was the Cambridge Supercomputer. This year it's the Cambridge AI System. It's the same fucking box (or the same fucking room full of racks full of boxes). Nothing has changed. It's not intelligent. There's nothing "AI" about this thing. Yet here we are, UK Govt AI Slop galore. So sad.

Neil Brown

@neil

Andrew Elwell

@neil i declare a vested interest in academic HPC ($dayjob), but it's an absolute crap time to try and get any good deals from hardware vendors right now, especially with something as "small" as 36 million. AI speculation trading by the hyperscalers and wannabe hyperscalers has really stung the rest of us who want to do Real Science rather than draw silly pictures:-(

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@neil

This is far from the first UK government to throw money at buying hardware that is not very useful for computer science research, while simultaneously underinvesting in computer science research. And then complaining that UK universities are slipping in international rankings for computer science.

Mike Morris

@david_chisnall @neil

I guess because politicians (like most people) think that computer science has something to do with computers.

The Tiller 🌊🌦️🌈

@david_chisnall @neil
Government always love to be seen *investing* in something. But then paying for *maintenance*, to make best use of the shiny new asset, has been massively out of fashion for *years*.

Buying new toys for your child, but skimping when it comes to their food.

Robin

@neil 16Gb of DDR 3 as well

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@mikro2nd @neil

A bunch of US and EU universities have government-sponsored agreements with fabs that make it easy for them to tape out a few chips each year. Doing that for all UK universities would be a lot more valuable than these centres even for the computer science is about computers mindset.

Ret

@neil file photo

Phil M0OFX

@ret @neil let's talk rustproofing, these colecos will rust up on you like that *snaps fingers*

Elosha

@otte_homan @neil It‘s clever! Fulfillment of hyped expectations and wording without actually wasting time on it.

der.hans

@neil by the time government procurement is ready they'll be lucky to get 8GB

ChrisR

@neil TBF in the 1970s we had a CDC Cyber 173, and we paid A$100,000 roughly of 100,000 (octal, so 32K decimal) 60 bit words of main memory!

Interpipes 💙

@neil by the time I read this toot, £36m will now only buy 1GB of RAM and a Freddo

Wandering Adventure Party

The UK government is to spend "£36 million to increase the power of one of the UK’s leading supercomputing centres".