{"id":93643,"date":"2025-10-22T05:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T05:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93643\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T05:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T05:34:07","slug":"stfc-hartree-centre-launches-mary-coombs-supercomputer-to-accelerate-uk-ai-and-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93643\/","title":{"rendered":"STFC Hartree Centre Launches \u2018Mary Coombs\u2019 Supercomputer to Accelerate UK AI and Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oct. 21, 2025 \u2014 The Science and Technology Facilities Council\u2019s (STFC) Hartree Centre<\/a> has launched a powerful new supercomputer designed to help UK industry accelerate innovation through artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Located within STFC\u2019s new \u00a330 million Supercomputing Centre at its Daresbury Laboratory, the system is named in honor of Mary Coombs, the UK\u2019s first female commercial programmer. It will give businesses and public sector organizations of all sizes access to world-class computing power and expertise. From new medicines to climate prediction, it will help UK businesses analyze vast datasets more quickly. It will turn cutting-edge research into real-world solutions faster, more efficiently and at greater scale, boosting productivity and growth across the UK economy.<\/p>\n

A Leap in Supercomputing Processing Power<\/p>\n

Mary Coombs delivers 10 times the performance of its predecessor, Scafell Pike, while being more energy efficient. A 24.41 petaflop system, it can perform 24.41 quadrillion floating-point calculations per second. For context, carrying out one calculation per second would take nearly 773 million years to achieve the same number.<\/p>\n

The GPU-based supercomputer is designed for AI workloads and advanced visualization, marking a major step forward in the Hartree Centre\u2019s computing capabilities.<\/p>\n

Accelerating Discovery<\/p>\n

The Hartree Centre at STFC\u2019s Daresbury Laboratory, at Sci-Tech Daresbury in the Liverpool City Region, is the UK\u2019s only supercomputing centre dedicated to working with industry to advance digital innovation.<\/p>\n

Home to some of the UK\u2019s leading experts in supercomputing, AI and data science, it helps businesses turn complex challenges and ideas into innovations that benefit the economy and society.<\/p>\n

Real-World Solutions<\/p>\n

Professor Kate Royse, Director of the STFC Hartree Centre, said: \u201cHere at the Hartree Centre, our new Mary Coombs supercomputer can provide UK industry with the computing power, expertise and skills needed to turn ambitious ideas into real-world solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom drug discovery to climate research, businesses can process vast and complex datasets faster and more efficiently than ever before, without needing in-house supercomputing or AI expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy giving industry access to world-class AI and high-performance computing, and to the leading skills of our Hartree Centre scientists, Mary Coombs can help businesses innovate with confidence, accelerate research, and bring solutions to market more quickly, delivering tangible benefits for our economy and society.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Major UK National Asset<\/p>\n

Paul Vernon, Head of STFC\u2019s Daresbury Laboratory, said: \u201cThe launch of the STFC Supercomputing Centre and Mary Coombs marks an important milestone for UK innovation, giving businesses access to world-class tools and expertise to turn ideas into reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new facility is an important national asset for research and innovation, strengthening the North West\u2019s position as a hub for advanced technology, digital skills and high-value jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy giving businesses the infrastructure to explore and apply advanced digital technologies, we\u2019re helping to build a stronger, more innovative digital economy and ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of global research and development, driving growth and opportunity across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading the Digital Future<\/p>\n

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: \u201cWhen I speak to investors from the UK and beyond, they always sit up and pay attention when I tell them that the Liverpool City Region is at the heart of the UK\u2019s advanced computing sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom cutting edge AI research to breakthroughs in health innovation and climate science, the impact of the pioneering work happening at Daresbury can be felt far beyond our region, and this new supercomputer will turbocharge those capabilities even further.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Key Part of the UK\u2019s Digital Innovation Strategy<\/p>\n

The new supercomputer forms part of the \u00a3210 million Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation programme, a collaboration between STFC and IBM.<\/p>\n

The program helps UK businesses and public sector organisations explore and adopt advanced digital technologies such as AI, quantum computing and data analytics to boost productivity and growth.<\/p>\n

The launch of the new STFC Supercomputing Centre also supports the UK government\u2019s AI Opportunities Action Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find out more about the Mary Coombs system here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a>: STFC Hartree Centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 21, 2025 \u2014 The Science and Technology Facilities Council\u2019s (STFC) Hartree Centre has launched a powerful new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[371,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-93643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}