The Met Office, the United Kingdom’s National Weather Service, has expanded its Cray XC40 supercomputer with artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics capabilities. In a statement, Cray said that the Met Office has added Urika-XC AI and analytics software suite to its supercomputer.

The Met Office is using the Urika-XC suite to explore the use of new methods, such as machine learning, in extracting insights from observational and model data.

“As in many industries, we are challenged with increasing data volumes and are turning to large-scale analytics, machine learning and deep learning applications to drive new insights and innovation,” said Charles Ewen, director of technology and CIO at the Met Office.

The Met Office takes in 215 billion weather observations from all over the world every day and uses an advanced atmospheric model to create tailored forecasts and briefings, according to Cray.

[Image courtesy: UK Met Office]