EPCC News 98

From our Director

Welcome to the Autumn 2025 issue of EPCC News.

This summer saw two important announcements from the Government which will impact EPCC for many years.

The confirmation of £750m funding for the next National Supercomputer service is extremely welcome. Although the delay in the project has repercussions, it does mean that we are likely to be able to take advantage of the next generation of processor technologies. We hope to deploy the new system by mid-2027 and the procurement process has now started.

Shortly afterwards, the Government also announced that EPCC has been selected to be the UK’s first National Supercomputing Centre. This is a very welcome recognition of all of our efforts over the past 35 years. In discussion with the Government, we are still understanding how this new status will impact our activities, but a key aspect will be strengthening our engagement with the academic and industrial computational science communities in the UK and internationally and, linked to that, showing greater leadership worldwide.

In many ways this second announcement was more important than that of the next National Supercomputer. Our new status will profoundly influence EPCC’s development over the next decade and we are very grateful that the Government has put their trust in us.

I hope you enjoy this issue of EPCC News.

Mark Parsons, EPCC Director