Digital Realty has introduced the choice of its Woking facility by Imperial School London. This collaboration marks the UK’s inaugural set up of a direct liquid-cooled (DLC) high-performance computing (HPC) system.
This development is a part of Imperial’s long-term technique to ascertain world-class analysis infrastructure, underpinning work in AI, local weather science, healthcare, engineering, and basic analysis. It helps Imperial’s place as a Tier 3 HPC college setting within the UK.
The inspiration for this initiative was laid years in the past with the ICICLE (Imperial School Intel Company Lenovo) programme, which fosters partnerships aimed toward growing energy-efficient HPC and AI options. As 2026 approaches, the initiative has been delivered to fruition, leveraging Digital Realty’s amenities for dealing with high-density, liquid-cooled workloads.
On the coronary heart of Digital Realty’s AI-ready centre in Woking, the brand new HPC platform integrates liquid-cooling options from Lenovo. This design enhances compute efficiency whereas aligning with Imperial’s energy-efficiency targets.
Past infrastructure upgrades, the initiative contains extra options and capabilities. It seeks to empower Imperial’s researchers to handle superior AI fashions, expedite data-heavy simulations, and speed up the interpretation of scientific insights into real-world purposes, from drug discovery to local weather modelling.
The partnership mirrors the broader development of integrating subtle information centre options into nationwide analysis agendas. As AI and simulation work demand elevated compute density and effectivity, the alliance held reveal how infrastructure suppliers can supply aggressive benefits to analysis establishments.
Accomplished from a July 2025 contract signing to a This autumn 2025 operational handover, the venture concerned advanced structural reinforcements and the set up of liquid-cooling infrastructure. It additional underscores Digital Realty’s functionality to ship high-intensity AI deployments effectively.
This collaboration with Imperial and Lenovo demonstrates a mannequin for AI infrastructure within the UK, combining analysis capabilities, technological instruments, and energy-efficient approaches.
