The UK government plans to invest at least £225 million (about $273 million) in AI supercomputing with the aim of bringing Great Britain into closer parity with AI leaders the U.S. and China. Among the new machines coming online is Dawn, which was built by the University of Cambridge Research Computing Services, Intel and Dell and is being hosted by the Cambridge Open Zettascale Lab. “Dawn Phase 1 represents a huge step forward in AI and simulation capability for the UK, deployed and ready to use now,” said Dr. Paul Calleja, director of Research Computing at Cambridge.

Announced Wednesday in a University of Cambridge news release, Dawn is among a fleet of new UK supercomputers being touted this week for the launch of the global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, where representatives from 28 nations met to discuss cooperative risk mitigation related to AI.

Two more supercomputers are also coming to Great Britain. Isambard-AI, named in honor of 19th century British engineer Isambard Brunel, is being built for installation in Bristol. Isambard is expected to be operational in 2024 and will be connected to Dawn, providing an estimated 30-fold capacity increase above current UK AI standards.

Researchers will be able to use the machines “to analyze advanced AI models to test safety features and drive breakthroughs in drug discovery and clean energy,” the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology explained in a news release. The pair are part of the UK’s AI Research Resource, helping researchers make the most advanced models of safe AI and drive other breakthroughs.

“The investment into the AI Research Resource has been tripled to £300 million, up from £100 million announced in March 2023, in a bid to further boost UK AI capabilities,” the UK government said, detailing that Dawn is being “delivered through a partnership with Dell and UK SME StackHPC,” and “will be powered by over 1000 Intel chips that use water-cooling to reduce power consumption.”

It is scheduled to be up and running within the next two months and will target breakthroughs in fusion energy, healthcare and climate modelling.

Isambard “will be ‘10 times faster than the UK’s current quickest machine’” thanks to “5,448 GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, powerful AI chips made by U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia,” writes CNBC.

Built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Isambard was previously announced, along with details of Scotland being selected as the site for the UK’s first exascale supercomputer, which will be hosted at the University of Edinburgh.