NVIDIA and Arm to Create World-Class AI Research Center in Cambridge

Hosting an Arm-based supercomputer, the facility is to serve as a hub for collaboration by AI researchers, scientists and startups across the U.K. and the world.
September 13, 2020 by Jensen Huang
Arm Cambridge headquarters

Artificial intelligence is the most powerful technology force of our time. 

It is the automation of automation, where software writes software. While AI began in the data center, it is moving quickly to the edge — to stores, warehouses, hospitals, streets, and airports, where smart sensors connected to AI computers can speed checkouts, direct forklifts, orchestrate traffic, and save power. In time, there will be trillions of these small autonomous computers powered by AI, connected by massively powerful cloud data centers in every corner of the world.

But in many ways, the field is just getting started. That’s why we are excited to be creating a world-class AI laboratory in Cambridge, at the Arm headquarters: a Hadron collider or Hubble telescope, if you like, for artificial intelligence.  

NVIDIA, together with Arm, is uniquely positioned to launch this effort. NVIDIA is the leader in AI computing, while Arm is present across a vast ecosystem of edge devices, with more than 180 billion units shipped. With this newly announced combination, we are creating the leading computing company for the age of AI. 

Arm is an incredible company and it employs some of the greatest engineering minds in the world. But we believe we can make Arm even more incredible and take it to even higher levels. We want to propel it — and the U.K. — to global AI leadership.

We will create an open center of excellence in the area once home to giants like Isaac Newton and Alan Turing, for whom key NVIDIA technologies are named. Here, leading scientists, engineers and researchers from the U.K. and around the world will come develop their ideas, collaborate and conduct their ground-breaking work in areas like healthcare, life sciences, self-driving cars and other fields. We want the U.K. to attract the best minds and talent from around the world. 

The center in Cambridge will include: 

  • An Arm / NVIDIA-based supercomputer. Expected to be one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world, this system will combine state-of-the art Arm CPUs, NVIDIA’s most advanced GPU technology, and NVIDIA Mellanox DPUs, along with high-performance computing and AI software from NVIDIA and our many partners. For reference, the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku in Japan, is Arm-based, and NVIDIA’s own supercomputer Selene is the seventh most powerful system in the world.  
  • Research Fellowships and Partnerships. In this center, NVIDIA will expand research partnerships within the U.K., with academia and industry to conduct research covering leading-edge work in healthcare, autonomous vehicles, robotics, data science and more. NVIDIA already has successful research partnerships with King’s College and Oxford. 
  • AI Training. NVIDIA’s education wing, the Deep Learning Institute, has trained more than 250,000 students on both fundamental and applied AI. NVIDIA will create an institute in Cambridge, and make our curriculum available throughout the U.K. This will provide both young people and mid-career workers with new AI skills, creating job opportunities and preparing the next generation of U.K. developers for AI leadership. 
  • Startup Accelerator. Much of the leading-edge work in AI is done by startups. NVIDIA Inception, a startup accelerator program, has more than 6,000 members — with more than 400 based in the U.K. NVIDIA will further its investment in this area by providing U.K. startups with access to the Arm supercomputer, connections to researchers from NVIDIA and partners, technical training and marketing promotion to help them grow. 
  • Industry Collaboration. The NVIDIA AI research facility will be an open hub for industry collaboration, providing a uniquely powerful center of excellence in Britain. NVIDIA’s industry partnerships include GSK, Oxford Nanopore and other leaders in their fields. From helping to fight COVID-19 to finding new energy sources, NVIDIA is already working with industry across the U.K. today — but we can and will do more. 

We are ambitious. We can’t wait to build on the foundations created by the talented minds of NVIDIA and Arm to make Cambridge the next great AI center for the world.

Image credit: Richard Croft, licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.