Written by Dr Amy Francis, PhD (Senior Data Scientist)
I recently attended an event hosted by Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) in partnership with NVIDIA, which focused on how Isambard-AI can accelerate startup innovation and help shape the UK’s AI ecosystem. The talks covered everything from cutting-edge AI models and national AI infrastructure to the opportunities available for founders, researchers and businesses to build things that may not otherwise be possible.
The event took place in Bristol’s brand-new digital innovation hub, located at the heart of the city’s rapidly expanding enterprise campus. The venue itself reflected the level of investment and ambition driving Bristol’s growth as a centre for technology and innovation. Surrounded by ongoing development and construction, it was hard not to notice the sense of momentum. Bristol is actively investing in its future and positioning itself as a key player in the UK’s AI landscape.
The event began with an introduction to Isambard-AI, providing an overview of the scale of the project and the ambitions behind it. Despite being relatively new, adoption has grown quickly, and the team spoke openly about plans for continued expansion. It was clear that the vision extends beyond building a powerful supercomputer; there is a wider goal of creating the infrastructure needed to support AI research, innovation and commercial growth, while helping to keep Bristol at the forefront of developments in the field.
The team also had a core focus on sustainability. As AI continues to evolve, conversations increasingly centre on the energy demands associated with training and deploying large-scale models. It was therefore encouraging to see environmental considerations treated as a key design principle. Powered by NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, Isambard-AI is ranked among the world’s most energy-efficient supercomputers; using a closed-loop liquid cooling system designed to improve efficiency and reduce overall energy consumption.
We also heard how Isambard-AI now underpins the UK’s £500 million *Sovereign AI initiative, highlighting the important role it is playing in the country’s wider AI strategy.
*What do we mean by Sovereign AI?
Sovereign AI is a nation’s ability to develop, deploy and govern AI technologies using infrastructure, data, talent and regulatory frameworks within its own jurisdiction. As AI becomes increasingly important to economic growth, public services and national security, many countries are recognising the importance of maintaining control over the technologies that will shape their future. Sovereign AI is about ensuring organisations can innovate using trusted infrastructure while retaining control over sensitive data and intellectual property, as well as national competitiveness. Alongside access to computing power, it also creates opportunities to benefit from local expertise, support networks, funding opportunities and regulatory alignment.
This led into a session from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which provided an overview of the AI Research Resource (AIRR). The session explained how startups, researchers and businesses can access government-backed compute resources and the application routes available to them. For many organisations, particularly early-stage startups, access to this level of infrastructure would normally be difficult or prohibitively expensive, so it was useful to better understand what support is available.
In many ways, accessibility became one of the key themes of the day. For AI startups, access to compute remains one of the biggest barriers to innovation. Training models, running experiments and validating ideas often requires significant investment, forcing founders to make difficult decisions about where to focus limited resources. Infrastructure such as Isambard-AI, together with initiatives like AIRR, helps lower this barrier by making world-class computing resources more accessible. This allows startups to test ideas faster, explore more ambitious projects and take calculated risks that might otherwise be out of reach, enabling founders to focus more of their time on experimentation, product development and finding market fit.
NVIDIA built on this theme by introducing its Inception programme, which is designed to support startups through access to technical expertise, training, networking opportunities and commercial guidance. It’s becoming increasingly clear that successful AI innovation requires more than just access to technology. Founders also need access to knowledge, partnerships and a community that can help them grow. Programmes like Inception, alongside initiatives such as AIRR and Isambard-AI, play an important role in creating this wider support ecosystem.
For me, one of the highlights of the event was hearing directly from the startups making use of this infrastructure. Their work covered a broad range of challenges, from energy optimisation and media creation to robotics, AI governance and model explainability.
We also heard from Cosine, who shared their work on Lumen, a UK-built frontier AI model designed for organisations operating in highly regulated and security-sensitive environments. Trained on Isambard-AI as part of the UK’s Sovereign AI programme, the model aims to give organisations greater control over how AI systems are developed, deployed and governed.
A recurring theme throughout the day was the relationship between infrastructure and opportunity. Much of the discussion focused on the resources being made available through initiatives such as Isambard-AI, AIRR and NVIDIA Inception, but hearing from the startups helped bring that conversation to life. It provided examples of how these investments are being translated into products, research and commercial applications.
The event also reinforced the scale of ambition surrounding AI in the South West and across the UK. From government-led initiatives and national compute infrastructure to startup support programmes and frontier model development, there was a clear focus on creating the conditions needed for organisations to develop and deploy AI at scale. Additionally, there was a high level of coordination between the different stakeholders. Government, academia, industry and startups were all contributing conversations around how to make advanced AI capabilities more accessible and how to translate technical capability into economic and societal impact. As investments such as Isambard-AI continue to mature, it will be interesting to see how this translates into new companies, research breakthroughs and AI-driven products emerging from the region.
Tool for screening immune therapeutics; bench mark therapeutics in an immune check point inhibitor (Pembrolizumab) sensitive assay or ADCC
The 11th annual Immuno-Oncology 360° Summit took place in Boston this year, a first after being held in the New York City for the past eight years. A fitting move, as Boston continues to strengthen its position as a leading biotech hub. With a packed three day agenda, IO360 brought together experts from across the immuno-oncology space, with experts working in pre-clinical to clinical research, regulatory affairs, business development and finance.
The event highlighted the next wave of innovation in IO, from new emerging cancer immunotherapy data, as well as new tools that help accelerate therapeutic development. While IO remained the central focus, pipeline diversification was also discussed, reflecting how learnings from cancer immunotherapy development can be applied to autoimmunity therapeutics.
Highlights from the event:
Crystal Mackall winning the Lifetime Achievement award, and delivering the keynote talk ‘Evolution and Future Directions in Cell Therapy – Overcoming Challenges and Pioneering Innovations’.
William Ho – Cell therapy for Autoimmunity/Be Biopharma. While the main focus of the conference was IO, Dr Ho gave a good overview of how IO companies are diversifying their pipelines to I&I.
Craig C. Suvannavejh, PhD – The Biotech Markets and IO Outlook. Amidst all the science, this specific talk gave good insight into the current state of the biotech market, as well as future considerations.
Key takeaways:
- Many experts voiced concern for the industry, citing widespread layoffs at CDC, NIH and FDA, and raising questions about how the reduced capacity at these agencies impact new drugs getting approved and to the patients.
- At the same time, many noted a rise in investment for companies developing immuno-oncology, expressing optimism for the future. The unmet medical need remains high – not only in cancer, but also across autoimmune and other complex disease. Significant advances are being made, from discovery of novel targets and MoAs, to innovative therapeutics, and technologies that accelerate drug development timelines – all of which contribute to more investor interest and momentum in the field.
- With IO being the topic, one area where all agreed was that combination strategies are the future. With efficacy of monotherapies being a concern, the combinational approach will hopefully be key.
IO360 was a productive, insightful and energising experience. It provided us the perfect opportunity to see where the field is heading and see the transition between early stage research and clinical execution.
A huge thank you to The Conference Forum and IO360 for organising an insightful and well-run event. We look forward to attending again next year.
At Nexus BioQuest, our scientists are experts in NK cell biology and offer a comprehensive suite of assays to test novel therapeutics. View our case study to see how NK cell driven ADCC is being developed for oncology and autoimmunity; targeting either unwanted tumour cells or autoreactive immune cells.
We recently started a new scientific initiative with the super catchy name of “speed science” which does what it says on the tin- our scientists get 10 minutes to present an immunology topic of their choice, this can be a project they are working on, a paper or a technology. This was inspired by the 3-minute thesis concept. We’ve found speed science provides a good work out for the brain as the presenter needs to be clear, concise and focused with their messaging. Our aim with this initiative is to challenge and improve our science communication skills, to inspire curiosity and to increase the diversity of immunology knowledge within the team; working towards our company values of curiosity and drive. We look forward to sharing some of the topics the team have enjoyed discussing over the coming weeks and in the meantime we challenge you to give it a go and test your science communication skills! Rhiannon Jenkinson, CSO
How did you celebrate International Day of Immunology? At Nexus BioQuest we celebrated our favorite immune cell. It has been fun to hear from our collaborators what their favorite immune cell is and why?
Macrophages are highly plastic and can differentiate into a range of activated phenotypes driven by external signals under various disease conditions. Therapeutic driven modulation of macrophage phenotype has the potential to modulate many different disease types where macrophage play a key role in either driving or regulating disease. We present here a range of macrophage polarisation conditions that model macrophage phenotypes found in different disease states run in 96 well or 384 well screening mode.
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