EPCC at Edinburgh, the UK’s first National Supercomputing Centre, is one of only four sites across the UK to receive the UKRI funding, which marks a milestone in the ‘digital horsepower’ available to researchers working on some of the society’s biggest challenges, from healthcare to flood defences and weather prediction.
It cements the University as a key player in the UK’s plan to drive economic growth through research and innovation, and is the first major step in delivering the UK Compute Roadmap, a long-term national plan launched in July 2025.
Compute power
The investment is focused on upscaling the UK’s compute capability – the massive power required to process data and run complex simulations that underlies AI and simulating the world around us.
By investing in a network of four distinct compute resources across the UK, UKRI say the new funding will help to ensure access to different types of hardware tailored to specific research needs, long-term support, and easier access to simplified systems.
Expanding Cirrus
In Edinburgh, £19.5 million investment will enhance and expand the reach of Cirrus, a state-of-the-art supercomputer backed by the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal and hosted by EPCC for researchers and industry partners across the UK.
The new resource also complements plans for the UK’s next national supercomputer, set to be the UK’s most powerful computer, at 50 times more powerful than the current national supercomputer, ARCHER2.
The Cirrus system will only contain CPUs (central processing units) and is designed to complement the forthcoming next national supercomputer, which will also be housed at the University.
Supercomputing
CPU-based supercomputers excel at general purpose supercomputing, while the next national supercomputer will also contain GPUs (graphics processing units), accelerator processors, and will focus on very large, complex calculations. The two supercomputers will complement each other.
The National Compute Resources (NCRs) – led by Edinburgh, Birmingham, Cambridge and University College London – are expected to be up and running for researchers by Autumn 2026.