Construction begins at £30m Cheshire supercomputer centre

Construction has officially started on a new £30m supercomputer centre, in partnership with IBM, located in Daresbury, Cheshire.

The Cheshire supercomputer centre forms part of the £210m Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation.

“Providing access to technologies, such as AI and quantum computing, enables businesses to increase productivity and achieve success, to the benefit of our economy, both here in the north-west and nationally,” said Professor Kate Royse, director of the Hartree Centre.

Cheshire’s supercomputer centre will be accessible to any size business to research supercomputing, quantum technology and artificial intelligence.

The centre will initially be capable of providing 80 to 100 petaflops or 100 trillion calculations per second.

The UK is home to a vast number of quantum computing startups that are raising significant amounts of early-stage capital such as Oxford Ionics’ £30m Series A and Oxford Quantum Circuits’ Series A which attracted £38m.

Paul Vernon, head, Daresbury Laboratory, said: “Our new supercomputing centre is a significant development in our mission to provide UK businesses with access to the vital infrastructure and expertise that will help them to grow and succeed on a global scale.”

Quantum computing is a key area of interest for the newly established Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.