Located at the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory, the £30m, 33,000 sq ft facility at the 6.2 acre site is being built by Russell WBHO and on track to complete by early 2025. The building has been designed to host the latest in new supercomputing artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technologies.
The company secured the project following a competitive tender process under the Crown Commercial Services Framework.
Russell WBHO’s specialist team will manage construction of the building to house two data halls, which will require an atmosphere maintained at 21-24 degrees, and an office suite with ancillary facilities.
The building will be steel frame construction with composite cladding to form the external envelope.
With all major elements of the building’s structure now complete, Russell WBHO is working with partner Sudlows to install critical M&E infrastructure.
To provide the extensive power required for the new centre, the electrical services will deliver a high-density load of 2.5MW with the capacity to expand up to 7.5MW in the future.
Through design and development with Russell WBHO’s specialist supply chain, systems are also being installed which will ensure continuous power for M&E equipment via dedicated transformers, generators, and UPS batteries.
To prevent IT equipment from overheating, a direct-chip water cooling system forms part of the design. This combines with state-of-the-art air-cooling chillers to efficiently dissipate heat throughout the building.
The main incoming infrastructure has an N+N redundancy arrangement for power and data, which means there is a backup for every key component, ensuring no downtime if one element fails. This design demanded extensive underground services routes which had to be very carefully coordinated. This was achieved using 3D modelling information exchanges between the Russell WBHO design team and its partners.
Maximising safety, the building is being constructed to exceed Building Control requirements. Enhanced measures include a gas suppression system to the high voltage (HV) and low voltage (LV) switch rooms as well as the battery rooms.
Jonathan Rhodes, Project Director at Russell WBHO commented: “This complex M&E installation marks the final stages of this exciting project and is the culmination of extensive design work with our partner Sudlows and other specialists.
“The team is making great progress with the commissioning period due to start within the next few months. This process will take us through to the end of this year ready for our client to install their high-performance computing technology in early 2025.”
The Trafford-based main contractor is well known for the breadth of its project capabilities and is responsible for constructing high-spec industrial and manufacturing facilities, including more than 1m sq ft in large-scale temperature controlled storage and distribution projects across the UK for leading global cold storage operators.
Nick Sunderland, commercial director for Russell WBHO, said: “We are extremely pleased to secure this contract with STFC for the new supercomputing centre at Daresbury Laboratory following a multi-way tender process via the Crown Commercial Services Framework.
“Our involvement through the planning and pre-construction phase, coupled with our in-depth knowledge of highly-specialist industrial and temperature controlled facilities such as this, has enabled us to bring forward a viable budgeted programme to deliver this scheme.”
The new supercomputing centre will support the £210m Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) programme, a collaboration between STFC Hartree Centre and IBM that provides industry access to state-of-the-art digital technologies and expertise.
Home to some of the UK’s most advanced technologies in computing, data science and artificial intelligence (AI), the Hartree Centre’s supercomputing facilities are dedicated to industry applications. UK businesses can access specialist expertise and supercomputers, helping to accelerate productivity and reduce the time and cost of developing new products.
Ben Small, project director for Arcadis, added: “Arcadis is delighted to have been appointed to project manage the development of the new supercomputing centre at Daresbury, working alongside STFC and Russell WBHO. This project will support the world class research delivered by STFC.”