The United Kingdom will invest around 1.2 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) in what the government claims will be the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, to provide more precise and cutting edge weather and climate reports.
The powerful computer, which will be operated by the UK's forecaster Met Office, will help provide a more accurate weather forecast, pinpoint the safest locations for flood incidences, and monitor changes to global climate.
In a statement Monday, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said the software aims to boost weather and climate charting by the Met Office and replace Britain's existing supercomputers -- the three Cray XC40 -- which form one of the most powerful weather and climate processors in the world. In use since December 2016, these super machines can do 14,000 trillion calculations a second.
Met's existing supercomputers will reach their full operational expiry in 2022. The first series of the latest hardware will increase the climate monitoring office's computing capability by six times, UK officials disclosed on Monday.
The new supercomputer is also expected to provide more detailed data to help the government's weather and energy sectors reduce the effects of blackouts and power surges, such as the one in the East of England last summer during a thunderstorm, the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy stated.
As a result, BEIS pointed out that the supercomputer would deliver a "multi-billion pound support" to the British economy in the next 10 years, with every pound allocated for the system seen to reap around £19-worth of economic benefits, it noted.
The 'lead time' to predict a major weather disturbance was only 48 hours some 10 years ago, which gave little or no time at all for disaster teams to lay down their defenses, or warn the public, especially medical facilities. The new supercomputer can change all that with its advanced operating system and technology.
According to Professor Albert Tank, who is director of Met Office Hadley Center for Climate Sciences, there will be "more and more lead time" for weather forecasts and other climate events with the new supercomputer.
With the United Kingdom hosting the year-end climate summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will seek to showcase the government's strong campaign in the research and study of global climate and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.
Johnson and his administration plans to use the information generated by the new supercomputer to inform and integrate into the government's environmental policy as it seeks to push the battle against climate change.
