A new computing centre in the Midlands will give researchers access to machines that can run simulations in days or minutes instead of months. High-performance computing (HPC) tackles problems that overwhelm ordinary desktop computers. It handles everything from designing aircraft engines to processing financial transactions and creating animated films. The current consortium has used HPC for energy, manufacturing, sustainability, healthcare, and transport research. But emerging fields such as quantum technologies demand even greater computational power, and existing capacity is stretched. The HPC Midlands Plus Centre will serve researchers at universities across the Midlands and beyond, with Queen Mary University of London as a partner. It will also open its facilities to industrial partners, supporting commercially relevant research that benefits the UK economy. A key commitment is developing software that makes optimal use of the system. If successful, the centre will accelerate fundamental science and engineering research across multiple disciplines, while giving UK industry access to world-class computing resources. The impact will be felt in the quiet infrastructure that keeps society running—from more efficient energy grids and faster supply chains to better medical diagnostics and safer transport systems.
View original technical description
High performance computing (HPC) technology is used to provide solutions for challenging problems, which require advanced computer power. It can perform simulations orders of magnitudes quicker than an individual Personal Computer, resulting in a reduction in the time taken from months to days or even minutes. There is an associated capability to be able to generate, move about, and analyse very large quantities of data exceptionally quickly. High performance computing technology now pervades our everyday lives, for example from financial transactions, the design of aircraft engines, through to animated film production. In the Engineering and Physical Sciences across the consortium, HPC has to date been specifically used to address global challenges including Energy, Manufacturing, Sustainability, Healthcare and Transport. Moving forwards we are looking at how we can develop HPC to have an impact in emergent areas, such as Quantum Technologies. This proposal will build on partnerships in the Midlands and with Queen Mary for the delivery of HPC through the formation of the HPC Midlands Plus Centre to researchers in Higher Education Institutes in the Midlands, and beyond, to support excellent scientific and engineering research. It will also grow its significant portfolio of industrially relevant research and enable industrial partners to access its world-class facilities to benefit the UK economy. Underpinning this will be a commitment from the Universities to support the development of software that can make the optimal use of the system.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know