Nvidia building UK supercomputer to boost COVID-19 research

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - U.S. chip giant Nvidia
said on Monday it is building Britain's most powerful
supercomputer, which will use artificial intelligence to help
researchers solve pressing medical challenges, including those
related to COVID-19.

GSK and AstraZeneca, which are both involved
in coronavirus vaccine research, will be two of the first
pharmaceutical companies to harness the power of the machine,
Nvidia said.

The Cambridge-1 computer, which is expected to come online
by the end of the year in Cambridge, east England, will be a
NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD system capable of delivering more than 400
petaflops of AI performance, the company said.

That would mean it ranks 29th on the Top 500 list of the
world's most powerful supercomputers, it said.

Cambridge is also home to Arm, the British chip designer
that Nvidia has agreed to buy from Japan's SoftBank for
$40 billion.

Nvidia has previously said it intended to create an AI
Center of Excellence in the university city, featuring an
Arm-based supercomputer, which will serve as a hub of
collaboration for researchers, scientists and startups across
the UK.

The separate Cambridge-1 supercomputer will be made
available to researchers from industry and academia.

"The Cambridge-1 supercomputer will serve as a hub of
innovation for the UK, and further the groundbreaking work being
done by the nation's researchers in critical healthcare and drug
discovery," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, in his
GPU Technology Conference keynote speech.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle)