UK switches on AI supercomputer that will help spot sick cows and skin cancer

Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, switches on Isambard-AI. He said it gives the UK ‘the raw computational horsepower that will save lives, create jobs, and help us reach net zero-ambitions faster’. Photograph: Bristol University

Britain’s new £225m national artificial intelligence supercomputer will be used to spot sick dairy cows in Somerset, improve the detection of skin cancer on brown skin and help create wearable AI assistants that could help riot police anticipate danger.

Scientists hope Isambard-AI – named after the 19th-century engineer of groundbreaking bridges and railways, Isambard Kingdom Brunel – will unleash a wave of AI-powered technological, medical and social breakthroughs by allowing academics and public bodies access to the kind of vast computing power previously the preserve of private tech companies.