Major Computing Milestone for UK Industrial Research
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has officially deployed the Mary Coombs supercomputer, a 24.41 petaflops AI system, at its Hartree Centre in Daresbury. This significant computing infrastructure represents a major advancement for industrial and scientific research capabilities in the United Kingdom, housed within a new £30 million ($40m) purpose-built facility.
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Honoring Computing Heritage While Driving Future Innovation
The system bears the name of Mary Coombs, recognized as the UK’s first female commercial computer programmer, paying tribute to her pioneering contributions to the field. Professor Kate Royse, director of the STFC Hartree Centre, emphasized the system’s role in bridging ambitious ideas with practical applications: “Our new Mary Coombs supercomputer can provide UK industry with the computing power, expertise and skills needed to turn ambitious ideas into real-world solutions.”, as comprehensive coverage
Enhanced Performance with Energy Efficiency Focus
Replacing the center’s previous Scafell Pike system—a BullSequana X1000 configuration featuring Intel Skylake CPUs and Intel Xeon Phi accelerators—the Mary Coombs supercomputer represents not only a performance upgrade but also significant improvements in energy efficiency. While STFC has confirmed the system is GPU-based, specific hardware details remain undisclosed, highlighting the focus on practical applications rather than technical specifications., according to expert analysis
Strategic Industrial Applications
The supercomputer’s deployment aligns with critical research priorities including drug discovery and climate prediction, sectors where high-performance computing can dramatically accelerate progress. Professor Royse highlighted the broader industrial implications: “By giving industry access to world-class AI and high-performance computing, and to the leading skills of our Hartree Centre scientists, Mary Coombs can help businesses innovate with confidence, accelerate research, and bring solutions to market more quickly.”
Future Computing Roadmap
Questions remain about the center’s broader computing strategy, particularly regarding a previously announced agreement with Lenovo for a 44.7 petaflops system. The relationship between the newly deployed Mary Coombs system and this planned installation underscores the Hartree Centre’s evolving approach to meeting growing computational demands across industrial and scientific sectors., according to recent developments
Broader Digital Innovation Context
This deployment forms part of the larger £210 million ($280m) Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) program, a collaborative initiative between STFC and IBM. The Hartree Centre, established in 2012 at Daresbury Laboratory, continues to strengthen its position as a cornerstone of the UK’s high-performance computing, data analytics, and AI research infrastructure, operating within the broader Sci-Tech Daresbury science and innovation campus ecosystem.
The integration of this advanced computing capability positions UK industry and research institutions to tackle increasingly complex challenges, from pharmaceutical development to environmental modeling, through accelerated computational approaches.
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