CFMS Secures £2.4M Government Funding for Cutting Edge Computing Project

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Nicky Godding

CFMS team

The Centre for Modelling and Simulation (CFMS) has been awarded £2.4 million of funding from the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology to develop a unique High Performance Compute (HPC) system designed to tackle some of the biggest issues facing society.

CFMS, an independent digital engineering Research and Technology Organisation based in Bristol, will use the funding to design a unique computing resource which will be industrially secure with diverse architecture that maximises its flexibility.

The project aims to help industry fast-track solutions for pressing global challenges, particularly climate change. These range from accelerating the pace of addressing major sustainability issues such as hydrogen technology, to advancing pioneering energy projects including harvesting solar energy from space.

Sam Paice, Chief Executive of CFMS, said: “Technology has a vital role to play in helping us deal with major and complex societal challenges, and finding solutions demands a novel and dynamic form of computing. With this funding, we’re poised to deliver a computer system that can cater for a wide spectrum of problems, keep pace with the relentless march of innovation and be flexible enough to manage extremely complex technology.”

The project will provide businesses with modern and flexible research-level compute, but with the heightened commercial security required for industrial research which is dependent on proprietary data. This is a particularly important feature in the era of data-driven AI approaches such as deep learning and will complement other investments made into national infrastructure, including the University of Bristol’s Isambard AI machine.

Science, Innovation and Research Minister, Andrew Griffith, said: “The UK is renowned for its world-class research and development and as technology advances faster than ever, our £39m Research and Innovation Organisations Infrastructure Fund is ensuring more ambitious teams have the tools to drive cutting-edge innovation in a competitive landscape for years to come.

“Projects like the Centre for Modelling and Simulation’s high performance computing system can help to pioneer solutions to complex, global challenges like climate change that benefit us all, while boosting the local economy with more highly skilled jobs.”

Simon Galpin, Airbus Filton’s Head of Site, added: “It’s great to see investment in new computing approaches at CFMS, helping to facilitate much needed research and development in digital technologies.”

The announcement follows investment secured by CFMS from the UK Space Agency’s Space Cluster Infrastructure Fund last year for a pioneering pilot data centre capability for next generation space engineering, robotics, simulation and AI.

Sam added: “The funding we’ve secured in recent months and the support we’ve received from industry is a ringing endorsement of our expertise in cutting-edge technology such as AI and digital engineering. It’s great news for CFMS, the South West and the UK as a whole.”

Back in 2007, a consortium of organisations from academia, government and industry came together to work on achieving significant advances in the design processes of aerodynamic structures.

This consortium included BAE Systems, Airbus, ARA, BMT Fluids, Eurostep, Fraser-Nash Consultancy, MBDA, Microsoft, PCA Engineers, Quadratics, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce, Westland Helicopters and Williams F1, with matched funding from Innovate UK, working together to achieve positive results for the sector. CFMS was formed in 2010.

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.