Edinburgh supercomputer cancellation ‘is science’s HS2 moment’

A “surprise” announcement that the UK government has scrapped the development of an £800 million supercomputer due to be housed at the University of Edinburgh is “not a welcome message for science”, commentators have warned. 

Labour has scrapped funding for the exascale supercomputer as well as a related £500 million fund to support new supercomputers for artificial intelligence research, announced by the former Conservative government less than a year ago.

The decision, first reported by the BBC, comes after chancellor Rachel Reeves warned this week of “tough choices” after claiming that the previous administration had left a £22 billion hole” in public finances.

“The government is taking difficult and necessary spending decisions across all departments in the face of billions of pounds of unfunded commitments,” said a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology.

The effects are now being felt at Edinburgh, which had already built a £31 million facility to house the supercomputer, the future of which remains unknown.

The computer was expected to be 50 times faster than any currently in the UK, and aid research and technology development in artificial intelligence, drug discovery, climate change, astrophysics and advanced engineering. The project would have made Edinburgh one of the few places in Europe able to host a computer of such scale.

A university spokesperson said that its principal, Sir Peter Mathieson, was urgently seeking a meeting with science secretary Peter Kyle following the announcement.

John Womersley, former executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council who is now a special adviser at Edinburgh, said the supercomputer’s cancellation was unexpected.

“It is a surprise announcement because people in Edinburgh knew this wasn’t nailed down but believed it would likely go ahead,” he said. 

Comparing the decision to Rishi Sunak’s cancellation of the Birmingham-Manchester phase of the HS2 railway line, Professor Womersley added: “This sends a HS2 cancellation message – that the Treasury is very much in charge in government, and that’s not a welcome message for science.”

“The science community wants to love this new government but they are not making this easy,” said Professor Womersley, who was director general of the European Spallation Source, a £2.6 billion science project under construction in Sweden. 

On whether the UK could join the European Union’s new project to build an exascale computer, Professor Womersley said there were significant challenges. “We have not been part of this for a long time – we chose not to be part of it because having our own computer would guarantee us access to the whole machine, even if was not as cutting edge as the European one.” 

The lack of an exascale computer would hinder the UK’s ability to undertake cutting-edge research, said Professor Womersley, but there was also the need for slightly less powerful computers too.

“We need high-performance computers to provide capability that doesn’t exist but there are 10 times as many problems that require a 10th of the capability of [the cancelled exascale computer], and 100 times as many problems that require 100th of the capacity,” he said. 

“In other words, you don’t want to put too much of your money into peak computing, even though it will allow us to remain at the cutting edge of research.”  

The Edinburgh spokesperson said that the university had “led the way” in UK supercomputing, “and is ready to work with the government to support the next phase of this technology in the UK, in order to unlock its benefits for industry, public services and society”.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com