UK invests £1.2bn in supercomputer to predict climate change impacts and severe weather

Government claims supercomputer will reap multi-billion pound economic benefits by offering better climate and weather forecasting

The government has today given the green light to a state-of-the-art £1.2 billion supercomputer designed to more accurately predict severe weather and climate impacts.

The government said data provided by the new system - described as "the world's most powerful weather and climate supercomputer" - would enable faster and more accurate predictions of storms and climatic shifts, while also helping find the most suitable locations for flood defences.

Managed by the Met Office, the system is designed to help better prepare communities and businesses for weather disruption, including through more sophisticated rainfall predictions to aid flood respond and better forecasting at airports to help plan for potential weather disruption.

It should also provide more detailed information to help the UK energy sector mitigate against potential blackouts and power surges, such as that seen in the East of England last summer during a thunder storm, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) explained.

As a result, BEIS said the supercomputer would deliver a "multi-billion pound" boost to the UK economy over the next decade, with every pound spent on the system potentially reaping up to £19-worth of economic benefits, it claimed.

The manufacturer of the supercomputer is not yet known as the project is still out to tender.

Business Secretary and COP26 President Alok Sharma - who was handed the crucial joint role in last week's cabinet reshuffle - said data gleaned from the supercomputer would also help inform government policy, as the world gears up for a crucial year of climate action in 2020.

"Over the last 30 years, new technologies have meant more accurate weather forecasting, with storms being predicted up to five days in advance," he said. "Come rain or shine, our significant investment for a new supercomputer will further speed up weather predictions, helping people be more prepared for weather disruption from planning travel journeys to deploying flood defences."

The new supercomputer is set to operate for a 10 year period, replacing the Met Office's current systems when they reach the end of their planned lifetime in late 2022.

Met Office chief executive Professor Penny Endersby said the £1.2bn investment would help provide "the information needed to build a more resilient world in a changing climate and help support the transition to a low carbon economy across the UK".

"It will help the UK to continue to lead the field in weather and climate science and services, working collaboratively to ensure that the benefits of our work help government, the public and industry make better decisions to stay safe and thrive," she added.

It came as BEIS also a new announced £30m investment for advanced supercomputing services, in order to provide researchers with access to the latest technology and software engineering expertise. The funding is earmarked to support seven 'High Performance Computing' services run by universities across the UK to help support work in areas such as Artificial Intelligence and energy storage and supply, the Department said.

A version of this article was first published in Computing 's sister site Business Green.