Today marks 1 year since we began construction at the Isambard-AI supercomputer compound. In that time, the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing team, together with our partners including HPE, Oakland Construction and Contour, have made unprecedented progress.

On 3rd June 2024, we started with an empty car park, housing Isambard 3, a GW4 supercomputer. 

Astonishingly, by 3rd June 2025, we've built an entire, brand-new, 5MW AI supercomputer facility and installed the 5,280 GPU Isambard-AI phase 2 system. 

Isambard-AI puts incredible amounts of computational power in the hands of brilliant humans who have research projects or industry innovations that, when accelerated, will be world-changing.

This week we're starting to power everything up, and we plan on welcoming our first early access users this summer.

This incredible timeline shows what can be achieved when you have strong support from your major stakeholders, in this case the UK Government, DSIT, our research council, UKRI/STFC, and the University of Bristol senior management team.

Watch this space for more information at the International Supercomputing Conference 2025 (ISC) in Hamburg, Germany, next week!