Isambard 3
Isambard 3 is the latest phase of the GW4 Isambard service, the UK’s EPSRC-funded national Tier-2 supercomputing resource led by the University of Bristol in partnership with the GW4 Alliance (Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter). Building on the success of the original Isambard systems, Isambard 3 provides a large-scale, production HPC platform for UK academia, government labs and industry, accelerating research across computational engineering, climate and weather, materials and chemistry, life sciences, and data-intensive science.
Technically, Isambard 3 advances the service’s Arm-first approach to high performance computing, delivering high performance per watt on a modern CPU-only architecture. The system couples thousands of latest-generation Arm cores with a high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnect and energy‑efficient memory, enabling scalable MPI workloads as well as mixed-mode simulation and data analytics. A comprehensive software stack is provided, including multiple compilers and MPI implementations, math and domain libraries, container support (Apptainer/Singularity), and popular open-source and commercial applications—so researchers can port, optimise and run codes with minimal friction.
Designed with sustainability and usability in mind, Isambard 3 features efficient power and cooling, detailed energy monitoring, and a familiar user environment with Slurm scheduling, rich documentation and hands-on support from an experienced RSE team. Access is available to UK researchers through EPSRC Tier-2 allocation routes and partner programmes, with regular training and consultancy to help teams scale their work. Isambard 3 complements national GPU and AI systems, offering a powerful, cost-effective CPU platform for large-scale simulation and data processing at the heart of the UK HPC ecosystem.