The U.K. no longer has a supercomputer in the top 50, according to new data from the Top500 project, which ranks the 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems globally.
The country’s current national supercomputer system, Archer2, is approaching end-of-life in 2026. According to the latest figures, it’s also now sitting in 62nd place globally, down from 49th in June, and 38th last November.
This downward trajectory comes shortly after the new Labour government shelved plans by the previous government to invest £800 million (around $1 billion) in a new “exascale” supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Mark Parsons, who has worked at the university’s EPCC supercomputer center since 1994, said it would be a “disaster” if the U.K. didn’t reverse course on supercomputing investment. “We can’t be a country the scale of Britain without a supercomputer,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “It would block the advancement of U.K. science and innovation.”