Nvidia says it will build UK's most powerful supercomputer

Graphics chip maker Nvidia plans to build Britain’s fastest supercomputer that healthcare researchers can use to work on medical problems including COVID-19

Nvidia Britain (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Graphics chip maker Nvidia said Monday it plans to build Britain's fastest supercomputer that healthcare researchers can use to work on medical problems including COVID-19.

Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, said it will spend 40 million pounds ($52 million) on the supercomputer, dubbed Cambridge-1, which will consist of 80 Nvidia systems and is expected to be online by the end of the year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Cambridge-1 will be available to healthcare researchers using artificial intelligence to working on urgent medical challenges.

“Tackling the world’s most pressing challenges in healthcare requires massively powerful computing resources to harness the capabilities of AI,” Huang said.

Cambridge-1 would be ranked the world’s 29th most powerful supercomputer and the most powerful in the U.K. the company said.

Pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca are among the groups that have already signed up to use the supercomputer.

The announcement comes after the company said last month it agreed to buy U.K.-based chip designer Arm Holdings for up to $40 billion, and would set up an artificial intelligence research center in Cambridge, England, where Arm is headquartered.