2 days Ago By Paul Sawers
The U.K. no longer has a supercomputer in the top 50, according to new data from the Top500 project , which ranks the 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems globally.
The country’s current national supercomputer system, Archer2 , is approaching end-of-life in 2026. According to the latest figures, it’s also now sitting in 62nd place globally, down from 49th in June , and 38th last November . This downward trajectory comes shortly after the new Labour government shelved plans by the previous government to invest £800 million (around $1 billion) in a new “ exascale ” supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Mark Parsons , who has worked at the university’s EPCC supercomputer center since 1994, said it would be a “disaster” if the U.K. didn’t reverse course on supercomputing investment.
“We can’t be a country the scale of Britain without a supercomputer,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times . “It would block the advancement of U.K.
science and innovation.”.
