University Of Bristol Selected To Host UK’s Most Powerful AI Supercomputer – New Technology

In a boost for the UK AI sector, the University of Bristol has
been chosen to host the UK’s planned ISAMBARD-AI supercomputer,
named after the city’s famous civil engineer. As noted in the
University’s press release:

The new multi-million-pound Bristol facility will be used by
a wide range of organisations from across the UK to harness the
power of AI, which is already the main driver of emerging
technologies like big data and robotics. The new supercomputing
facility will also play a vital role in important areas such as
accelerating automated drug discovery and climate
research.

The final technical specifications of ISAMBARD-AI do not yet
appear to have been decided, but it will be interesting to see
whether Nvidia chips are used as in the other upcoming
supercomputer, ISAMBARD 3. In any case, it will be interesting to
see both the hardware and software technology deployed in
ISAMBARD-AI, and whether stakeholders attempt to protect this
intellectual property. For example, software that brings about a
technical effect at the level of the architecture of a computer is
typically capable of being patented in the UK and Europe. Such
software may be that which distributes workload over multiple
logical cores, for example.

If you would like to know more about patenting software or AI,
please get in touch. You can also read our 3rd Annual AI Report
2023, here, which this year has particular focus on
the Medtech and other life sciences sector.

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