UK slaps down $1.6 billion for world's fastest weather supercomputer

UK's weather service called the Met Office has announced that it will be spending a whopping 1.2 billion pounds (USD$1.6 billion) on the world's fastest weather supercomputer.

According to the announcement, the Met Office will be purchasing the world's most powerful weather supercomputer that is estimated to be ten times the cost of their current one called Cray XC40. The new weather supercomputer will also have upgraded accuracy that blows UK's current forecaster out of the water. The new supercomputer will create a "digital twin" of our atmosphere with data and be able to create forcasts for area's that are just down to 1,000 meters (62 miles) in diameter.

This is impressive when compared to the current systems 10km forecast diameter. The report also states that the new weather supercomputer will go into service in 2022, and at the time of installation it will already be six times more powerful than the current Cray XC40. Power level jumps won't stop there, as in five years time the new supercomputer will get an upgrade bumping it up in performance by a further three times. This means that by the time the new supercomputer is at full power it will be nearly 20 times more powerful than the UK's current machine.

Met's Chief Executive, Penny Andersby said, "We'll be streets ahead of anybody else. Ultimately it'll make a difference to every individual, every government department, every industry as people see forecasts becoming steadily better."

Last updated: Apr 6, 2020 at 04:35 pm CDT