The UK AI Factory Antenna (UKAIFA) – supporting Artificial Intelligence adoption across the UK and Europe

The €10m (£8.6m) UK AI Factory Antenna (UKAIFA) is one of thirteen Antenna projects funded across Europe to expand the development of their national Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystems. These projects are designed to complement and enhance the existing European AI Factories, which provide large AI specific supercomputers and associated services across Europe. Led by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), EPCC’s UKAIFA is collaborating with the HammerHAI AI Factory, based at and coordinated by the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), Germany’s first National Supercomputing Centre, in partnership with a consortium of leading German academic research centres. UKAIFA is funded to support the UK’s growing demand for Artificial Intelligence adoption. The project will expand the use of AI across a wide range of organisations and stakeholders in the UK, focussing on start-ups, SMEs, larger industrial companies and the public sector (with a particular focus on AI for health). HLRS and HammerHAI will aim to work with its local manufacturing, engineering, and research sectors on better harnessing the power of AI. The Antenna will offer a range of services, including Expertise and support on efficient use of AI-technologies, training and knowledge exchange, resource access and hosting, sharing, and curation of relevant datasets.