UK Prime Minister wants £800M to spend on big British iron
- Reference: 1678361466
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/09/uk_prime_minister_wants_800m/
- Source link:
Citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg [1]reports that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, had begun reviewing proposals to invest as much as £800 million — circa $950 million — to build a supercomputer.
Supercomputers, as Reg readers know, are used by governments for a variety of scientific and military applications ranging from the maintenance and safe storage of nuclear armament to climate modeling, fundamental physics, and drug discovery to name just a few.
[2]
While Sunak's super wasn't mentioned in the framework [3]published earlier this week, the prime minister's newly formed Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology has reportedly drawn up plans for Big British Iron. One of the more notable provisions, is that the machine would reportedly be built by UK firms and using chips and systems provided by British chipmakers, under a plan that would reinvest those funds into the local tech economy.
[4]
[5]
This is notable since it would seem to preclude US-based HPE and French HPC vendor Atos from being part of the deal. These two companies are responsible for building [6]many of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. And assuming the £800 million is the actual cost of the machine, the proposed super would be immense, potentially dwarfing the US Frontier supercomputer, which currently holds the [7]number-one spot on the Top500, at $600 million.
[8]Fujitsu's A64FX successor will be an Arm-based datacenter chip
[9]Now we're building computers from lab-grown brain cells
[10]SambaNova's AI paired with Fugaku supercomputer to develop 'digital twins'
[11]Chipmakers threaten to defect to US, EU if UK doesn't get its semiconductor plans sorted
While it's not clear who would ultimately assemble the machine, or even who would supply the components, one possibility is British startup Graphcore.
The company is already working on an AI supercomputer called the [12]Good Machine , named for British mathematician Irving John Good, who worked alongside Alan Turing. And as our sister site The Next Platform rather morbidly pointed out, Good also predicted that artificial intelligence would lead to the downfall of the human race and ultimately our extinction.
However, the Good machine, at 10 exaflops of "AI performance" — not to be [13]confused with the exaflop of FP64 performance achieved by the Frontier system — is relatively cheap at an estimated cost of $120 million compared to what Sunak apparently has in mind.
[14]
Another possibility is that the proposed system will opt for British cores if not silicon — perhaps with a sticker that reads "Designed in Britain, Assembled in the USA or Japan" And that means using an Arm-based processor.
The British chip designer has steadily expanded its portfolio to address datacenter, cloud, and HPC applications. And Arm also has a pretty good track record when it comes to supercomputers. Riken's number-two ranked Fugaku system uses Fujitsu's Arm-based A64FX processor. Another potential supplier could be Nvidia. Despite being an American company, Nvidia not only has a long history of high-performance computing, but also uses Arm's CPU cores — specifically the [15]Neoverse V2 architecture — in its Grace and Grace-Hopper superchips.
The latter systems could conceivably be built domestically as Nvidia has already developed reference designs for its Grace-based HGX systems.
[16]
Of course, all of this is assuming that Sunak can find the cash to pay for such a machine. Bloomberg notes that the British Treasury has yet to sign off on the funding. The publication cited several, unnamed persons who indicated that talks between the Department of Science and Technology and the Treasury were ongoing. Another source said it was unlikely that a resolution would be found in time for next week's annual budget.
Sunak's technological ambitions could also face backlash from the British people who, faced with rising inflation and supply chain shortages at the market, were [17]reportedly told by British Environment Secretary Therese Coffey to eat turnips instead. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-08/sunak-is-gearing-up-to-spend-800-million-on-uk-supercomputer
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZAoQswZl0KwMVxSH2T5ITgAAAMo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-science-and-technology-framework/the-uk-science-and-technology-framework
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZAoQswZl0KwMVxSH2T5ITgAAAMo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZAoQswZl0KwMVxSH2T5ITgAAAMo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.top500.org/lists/top500/2022/11/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/30/us_frontier_supercomputer_ousts_japans/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/06/fujitsus_a64fx_successor_will_be/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/02/organoid_intelligence/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/01/sambanova_ai_fugaku_supercomputer/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/14/uk_chipmakers_brexit/
[12] https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/03/03/graphcore-goes-3d-with-ai-chips-architects-10-exaflops-ultra-intelligent-machine/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/06/fp8_wont_make_ai_perf/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZAoQswZl0KwMVxSH2T5ITgAAAMo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/nvidias_grace_arm_neoverse_v2/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZAoQswZl0KwMVxSH2T5ITgAAAMo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/cant-get-tomatoes-let-us-eat-turnips-uk-minister-says-2023-02-23/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
So I guess you don't want the government to fund small scales projects and that they should only fund large projects?
NASA hands out similar small scale funding to smaller research projects, are you going to criticise them too?
"The agency provides up to $125,000 for companies to establish the merit and feasibility of their innovations."
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-provides-45m-boost-to-us-small-businesses
That £1.6m is supposed to be divided by 8. What can you research for £200k?
You won't even get one consultant for this money and what about office, proper workstation to perform computations and other tools?
I mean if you can get £200k to jsut say it's not feasible, then fair play.
If you think that 1.6 million is enough to bring any country to the status of superpower in anything, I have a bridge to sell you . . .
Weird - why won't ElReg let me upvote this? No problems with any other post (even others by the same user).
@Spazturtle
It's the imbalance between big words and small money that can be annoying I think. More about the big words actually than the money.
Iron Sky?
From onlyfans: Jeremy Johnson Irons, A.K.A. "Big British Iron", Male, "Actor", Loves horses.
From LinkedIn: Jeremy Johnson, Steel Erector.
I kid ye not!
Whilst it's nice to (finally) see some sort of ambition at HMG, and not just a rehash of old ideas, the cynic in me thinks £800m will be spent building a £1m machine, which won't perform as well as anyone elses £1m machine.
We brits might well be *capable* of doing this, but once HMG gets involved, money will be syphoned off to cronies and donors, and the rest will be spent "skilling up" and obtaining hardware. When this project is complete, it'll be brandished a failure and there won't be an attempt at a replacement or upgrade, so whatever learnings we might have made will ultimately be lost, along with any of the long term benefits.
It'll be like the Crick Institute won't it.
Cost of Central London building: £650M
Annual running costs: £130M
Amount left over to actually buy a supercomputer: £20M
What do you mean it doesn't have to be in Central London?
Re: It'll be like the Crick Institute won't it.
£19M spent on local community involvement initiatives
£999,980 on branding consultants
£20 on speccy from car boot sale
What could go wrong?
We no longer design CPUs. We used to have a cheap talented labour, but since taxes gone through the roof along with costs of living and inflation, the pay is nowhere near adequate to the effort it takes to become a chip designer. So good luck finding these, as those who could already moved offshore.
We also don't have fabs that could make these chips.
Seems like it's going to be another PPE type of scandal in the making.
Government will get a pile of crapware without anyone knowing how to even get it to boot.
But as always someone will get rich.
Re: What could go wrong?
But if the government scrapped IR35, so every crystal reports monkey got their Mondeo tax free - then we would be a technological superpower.
Re: What could go wrong?
I'll have you know crystal reports is an extremely complicated piece of software. You have to line up these little boxes, change the colours to your specification and link them to some data in a spreadsheet. You can link it to a database and do all the grunt work in the software but ain't no one got time for that shit and I'm unsure why anyone would. Why reinvent the wheel? Having said that some of us that used it in the past actually didn't use it other than to create a template then it was VBA all the way. I spent 12 months not actually opening it.
Re: What could go wrong?
FTFY
But as always a tory donor / peer / minister’s mate will get rich.
British technology
I'm thinking they'll borrow the reconstructed Babbage Difference Engine from the Science Museum and connect it to a bloody great big steam engine to overclock it.
-A.
Re: British technology
they'll borrow the reconstructed Babbage Difference Engine
Or they'll "think big" and build an Analytical Engine on the grounds that our engineering and material science have advanced enough to make it feasible, and talk about the vast number of jobs that will be created by the revived Jacquard loom card industry.
[And if you haven't seen it: [1]The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is great fun.]
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141981539/
Re: British technology
Wheels and cogs are so old hat. They should use my designs for the integrated valve, with millions of tiny valves in one glass envelope.
OK you'd need a couple of draxes to power it, but think of the prestige!
Re: British technology
The great thing about valve computers is you get a much warmer more rounded answer
Re: British technology
I think that's a distortion of the truth.
-A.
Re: British technology
Nice idea -- no problem of ever decreasing feature size in a vacuum.
-A.
Yet another epic government IT fail
If this pointless PR stunt becomes reality, it'll cost £1 for an Amstrad e-mailer from the clearance bin at Pissy World and £799,999,999 for the outsourcing contract to Crapita.
I'm wondering on how that local supercomupter for local people bollocks will work out. The UK has no hiigh-end chip manufacturer or facility - or an IT company with the expertise to build or run a supercomputer.
Re: Yet another epic government IT fail
The UK has no hiigh-end chip manufacturer or facility - or an IT company with the expertise to build or run a supercomputer.
Just scale up [1]this cluster .
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/tutorials/cluster-raspberry-pi-tutorial/
"This week British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak unveiled his Science and Technology Framework..."
If Sunak really wants to make a difference to British science then he ought perhaps to consider rejoining the Horizon programme and to ensure that the UK becomes an Associated State for science and technology cooperation purposes.
That is exactly what was agreed in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The only thing stopping it is the EU refusal to honour that part of the agreement until the disagreement over the wholly-unrelated NI protocol is resolved.
That might now finally happen.
Blame, regret and finger-pointing. It that all we've got?
What about Brexit means Brexit?
Oven Ready.
Having cake and eating it.
Winning!
How's that all going for us...?
Blame, regret and finger-pointing. It that all we've got?
You forgot incompetence. Our government is a world leader in incompetence. [Waves flag weakly, not noticing it's upside down.]
Department of Science, Horizon, Innovation, and Technology
It has a good ring to it and fits right in with HMG. I like your thinking.
Rusty ring...
10 exaflops of "AI performance"
Is that enough to give us "42" as an answer ?
Re: 10 exaflops of "AI performance"
Thankfully then we know what the question is.
I was at lecture once where two hyperdimensional beings (who looked a lot like small white mice) who revealed to us that it was how many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man.
Re: 10 exaflops of "AI performance"
Their sexist attitude does explain why women leap onto chairs
"an AI supercomputer called the Good Machine"
For £800m I'd expect it to be better than good.
The last government IT project that was a roaring success was? Actually, let’s not be over ambitious. What was the last government project that was in anyway successful? Not just IT, doesn’t even have to be hugely successful.
Nope. I can’t think of any either. Not under this administration at any rate.
This government has the opposite of a Midas touch.
Hey, a supercomputer's performance is measured in flops...
Government had plenty of successful projects, just that they don't benefit tax payer, but rather party donors and their mates.
So they want a big computer...
Given the state of the HS2 project (it'll end up as Birmingham to nearly London) they'll probably be sold one from the 1960s. They were big back then.
Re: So they want a big computer...
announced this morning, after the speculation for weeks, that some bits of HS2 will be delayed to save money. Since when has delaying anything ever saved money!!!! Time value of money means the costs will go up over time you'll save nothing. The only way to save would be scrap the fecking project, but of course the other economic law of throwing good money after bad will apply and they'll keep on going as they think they have invested too much already to scrap the project.
It's all relative
You're overlooking the nature of political time and political event horizons (general elections).
It will reduce spending within the event horizon.
brought to you by the PM that...
Doesn't know how contactless works... https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rishi-sunak-contactless-fail-video-b2043035.html
Doesn't know how QR codes work: https://www.msn.com/en-in/weather/other/rishi-sunak-celebrates-uk-innovation-%E2%80%93-by-posting-a-qr-code-to-twitter/amp/ar-AA18hXEr
Perhaps this chimps would fair better with IT if they studied something other than economics / politics
Re: brought to you by the PM that...
You don't assume Sunak will build that computer so it's more if those who need it and can build it have asked for the money to do it, or if it's more like Boris bridge across to Ireland.
I'm confused, is "iron" an acronym I missed? i.e. I.R.O.N.
The headline mentions it, and there's a brief sentence about it part way down. I clicked expecting to see an article about much needed post brexit metal smelting improvements.
"is "iron" an acronym I missed?"
No, it's just that a "big iron" is "irony" and a £800m "big iron" is "ironical".
The government have been stockpiling pi4's for the past 2 years in order to build the world's largest cluster.
Which explains the consumer supply chain issues
£800 million computer
So that is how they intend to manage the EU export paperwork......
Is that the same government that wants to spend a whooping 1.6 million on becoing a "space superpower"?
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_space_research_funding/