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Latest / Chips, compute and energy

ProgrammeComputeGovernmentUKConfirmed

UK funds £225m Isambard-AI supercomputer in Bristol with 5,448 NVIDIA GH200 chips

See how this story connects

Source: University of BristolAlso reported by HPE

The UK government announced £225 million on 1 November 2023 for Isambard-AI at the University of Bristol, part of a £300 million AI Research Resource that also includes the Dawn cluster in Cambridge. Built by HPE with 5,448 NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper superchips, it was planned to deliver over 21 exaflops of AI performance and open in summer 2024.

Why it matters

UK researchers gained a planned public AI compute resource, announced during the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit.

When
1 Nov 2023
ID
WTA-N-2023-0108
Who
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, University of Bristol, HPE, NVIDIA, University of Cambridge

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from University of Bristol and the reporting credited above. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at University of Bristol

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: Led toIsambard-AI opens in Bristol as the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputer

Data to measure this

Compare the years before 2023 with the years since in these series. National sources for United Kingdom come first.

  • Artificial Intelligence sector studyDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyNumber of UK AI companies, their revenue, value added, employment and investment.Years: 2022-2024 · annual · report only · Covers before and after
  • Epoch AI: frontier AI data centresEpoch AISite-level timelines of IT power, compute (H100-equivalents) and capital cost for large AI data centres.live · download · CSV
  • IEA Energy and AI dataInternational Energy AgencyWorld and regional data-centre capacity, power usage effectiveness, load factor and electricity use.download · XLSX
  • Epoch AI: GPU clusters (archived)Epoch AIMore than 500 GPU clusters and AI supercomputers with country, owner, performance, power and cost.Years: 2019-2025 · one-off · download · CSV · Covers before and after
  • OECD.AI: venture capital investments in AI start-upsOECD.AI (data from Preqin)Venture capital invested in AI start-ups by country and industry, with series for generative AI and AI compute start-ups.live · query tool
  • Crunchbase company and funding dataCrunchbase · paidPrivate company profiles, funding rounds and acquisitions.live · api · API

All data for United Kingdom

Cite this story

WTA-N-2023-0108: “UK funds £225m Isambard-AI supercomputer in Bristol with 5,448 NVIDIA GH200 chips.” wheresthe.ai, 1 Nov 2023. https://wheresthe.ai/d/gb-isambard-ai-225m-2023-11/ (source: University of Bristol).

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