Iridis research computing facility

Iridis is the University of Southampton's High-Performance Computing (HPC) facility and one of the largest university-owned research computing infrastructures in the UK. Following successive generations of investment and expansion, the facility today comprises of Iridis 6, Iridis X and the recently introduced Iridis 7, supporting a diverse range of HPC, AI and data-intensive research workloads. 

Iridis 6 comprises of over 26,000 CPU cores, including dense 192-core compute nodes and high-memory nodes with up to 3TB RAM, while Iridis X provides researchers with access to a heterogenous cluster with a range of CPU, GPU and specialist accelerated computing resources. Powered by next-generation NVIDIA accelerated computing technologies, Iridis 7 significantly expands the University's research computing capabilities and is expected to secure a place in both the TOP500 and GREEN500 rankings of the world's most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputers.

Highlights list 

• Iridis 6 comprises of 26,000+ AMD CPU cores, alongside high memory and login nodes with up to 3TB of memory and 15TB of local storage each
• Iridis X features a total of 5,760 AMD CPU cores and a variety of GPU cards including NVIDIA H200, H100, A100, L40, RTX6000, and L4 graphics cards, as well all AMD MI300X cards
• Iridis X hosts Iridis OnDemand, our deployment of Open OnDemand, providing researchers with web-based access to visualisation and interactive computing on Iridis
• high-priority school-funded nodes which can also be used by other Iridis users when available
• management of private research facilities including the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences’ deep learning computing cluster
  dedicated research infrastructure  engineers for user support and training with an inclusive HPC facility supporting both research and teaching activities at the University
• high-performance InfiniBand network infrastructure for high-speed data transfer
• shared high-performance storage with encryption and disaster recovery, accessible across Iridis clusters
• modern offsite datacentre with high power and cooling capabilities
• dedicated team of data centre engineers with 24/7 support

Access to Iridis

If you are a researcher or postgraduate student at the University of Southampton,  and think that you have a good case for using Iridis, please complete the online application form.

Project/Course tutors should fill out the Student Iridis Account application form to request access for Undergraduate and MSc students.

ECS Students can request for access to the ECS student resources by completing the ECS Students Application form.