EPCC
EPCC, part of the University of Edinburgh, is the UK's first National Supercomputing Centre, providing high-performance computing, AI and data science infrastructure to academic researchers, public-sector bodies, and commercial clients across aerospace, energy, life sciences, and astronomy.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1987
- HeadquartersEdinburgh, United Kingdom
- Headcount101–250
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What EPCC does
EPCC (the Edinburgh Parallel Computer Centre) is a department of the University of Edinburgh and, as of 2025, the UK's first formally designated National Supercomputing Centre. It operates a portfolio of national high-performance computing platforms: ARCHER2 (the UK's National Supercomputing Service at 28 petaflops); Cirrus (an HPE Cray EX4000 / AMD EPYC 9825 system with 73,728 cores and Slingshot 11 interconnect); DiRAC Tursa (an extreme-scaling GPU system with 291,840 Tensor cores built on Eviden Sequana XH2000 racks); NEXTGenIO (an Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory prototype); an FPGA testbed; and the Somerville astronomy data service. Alongside these it runs the Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF), which combines 20PB Lustre, 12PB Ceph, and 30PB tape storage with GPU-enabled machine-learning platforms including a four-system Cerebras CS-3 Wafer-Scale Cluster, as well as Trusted Research Environments implementing the Five Safes model for sensitive data. The Advanced Computing Facility data centre in Edinburgh houses the bulk of this hardware under purpose-built HPE ARCS cooling, and construction began in June 2026 to host the UK's next £750m national supercomputer.
EPCC serves four primary user groups: UK academic researchers (coordinated through UKRI funding bodies); public-sector and healthcare organisations requiring secure data analysis (Public Health Scotland, Scottish Government, NHS Digital, the Met Office, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, and the ISARIC4C COVID-19 consortium); commercial users in aerospace, energy, automotive, and life sciences accessing Cirrus on a pay-per-use basis; and the STFC particle-physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and nuclear-physics community via DiRAC. Its 25-year-old MSc in High Performance Computing and the Software Sustainability Institute (founded with Manchester, Oxford, and Southampton, with £17m of cumulative UKRI funding) sustain a national training pipeline.
EPCC generates no commercial revenue; it is funded through research grants and government allocations. Major funding streams include UKRI (over £500m invested in ARCHER2 to date), the £750m commitment for the next national supercomputer (2026), the £19.5m Cirrus expansion grant (2026), the £17m VECTA partnership with Rolls-Royce (2026), the £45.7m ExCALIBUR programme, €10m for Pilot-UKAIFA (EU and UK Government, 2025), and the £600m Edinburgh & South-East Scotland City Region Deal that underwrites EIDF through 2033. Access for academic users is coordinated through UKRI; commercial access to Cirrus is offered on a pay-per-use basis. Independent London Economics analysis found ARCHER2 delivered £4.2bn in UK economic benefit against ~£500m of costs, an £8.30-per-£1 return, which has been central to subsequent funding commitments.
EPCC firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- EPCC
- Legal name
- EPCC (part of University of Edinburgh)
- Website
- https://epcc.ed.ac.uk
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1987
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 101–250 employees
- Short description
- EPCC, part of the University of Edinburgh, is the UK's first National Supercomputing Centre, providing high-performance computing, AI and data science infrastructure to academic researchers, public-sector bodies, and commercial clients across aerospace, energy, life sciences, and astronomy.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
EPCC industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Supercomputing Services
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computer Facilities Management Services (541513), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)
- SIC
- Electronic Computers (3571), Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- AI/HPC Converged Systems (Hybrid Training/Simulation) (HDACAOAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- HPC System Software & Resource Management (Schedulers, MPI, OS Images) (HDACAOAH), Research Computing & High-Performance Computing (HPC) User Support (EDALAMAK)
Keywords
Where EPCC is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Edinburgh
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices2 records
Markets served
EPCC business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- UK Government Funding: EPCC receives substantial funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the UK government for operating national HPC services including ARCHER2 and the next national supercomputer (£750m investment announced). Funding also includes project-specific grants such as £19.5m for Cirrus capacity expansion.
- UK and Scottish Government (City Region Deal): EIDF is funded by UK and Scottish Governments under the Data-Driven Innovation initiative of the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland City Region Deal (£600m total initiative).
- EU Funding: EPCC leads the €10m EU-UK Pilot-UKAIFA (UK AI Factory Antenna) initiative, funded jointly by EU and UK Government.
- Industry Partnerships: Commercial access to HPC resources (Cirrus) available on pay-per-use basis for industry. Includes commercial software tools accessed on-demand. Current partnerships include £17m VECTA partnership with Rolls-Royce for sustainable aviation research.
- SSI Grant Funding: Software Sustainability Institute receives funding from all seven UKRI research councils. Phase 3 awarded £7.5m. Total SSI funding of £17m.
- Strategic Partnership (ASiMoV): Jointly funded by Rolls-Royce and EPSRC strategic partnership. 5-year project developing simulation capability for complete gas-turbine engine operation.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Academic Access - National HPC Services |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Commercial Access - Cirrus HPC |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | EIDF Services |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels6 records
EPCC product offering
Product offeringCore offering
EPCC operates and manages national-scale High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure on behalf of the UK research community, including the ARCHER2 national supercomputer, the Cirrus HPC system, the DiRAC Tursa GPU system, and the Edinburgh International Data Facility. It provides researchers, industry, and public-sector organisations with computational resources, data analytics, secure Trusted Research Environments, and an MSc programme in High Performance Computing. The centre also delivers specialist services including applications support, training, software sustainability, and access to FPGA and AI testbeds.
Product overview
EPCC is the UK's first National Supercomputing Centre, delivering a comprehensive portfolio of high-performance computing and data science services. The core offering includes national HPC systems (ARCHER2 at 28 petaflops, and the upcoming £750m next national supercomputer), specialized HPC platforms (Cirrus for industry, DiRAC Tursa for GPU-based extreme scaling, NEXTGenIO with persistent memory, and FPGA testbed for reconfigurable computing), and data infrastructure (Edinburgh International Data Facility with 20PB storage and GPU/AI platforms, Trusted Research Environments for secure sensitive data analysis, and Somerville for astronomy). Supporting infrastructure includes the Advanced Computing Facility data centre, SAFE accounting/monitoring framework, and outreach platform Discover and Learn. Strategic initiatives include the ASiMoV gas-turbine simulation partnership with Rolls-Royce, Software Sustainability Institute for research software best practices, ExCALIBUR exascale software programme, and the €10m Pilot-UKAIFA AI adoption initiative.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF): A set of compute, data and customer services optimised for data analytics and science, supporting projects across the Data Driven Innovation initiative with cloud, HPC, and Safe Haven services.
- Discover and Learn
- ARCHER2 Outreach
- SAFE (Service Administration by EPCC)
- Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)
- TeamEPCC
Products and services
- ARCHER2
- Cirrus HPC System
- DiRAC: Tursa
- Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF)
- Trusted Research Environments
- Somerville
- SAFE (Service Administration by EPCC)
- FPGA Testbed
- NEXTGenIO
- Advanced Computing Facility (ACF)
- Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)
- MSc in High Performance Computing
Quantifiable outcome
- £4.2 billion in UK economic benefit delivered by ARCHER2 over five years
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use EPCC
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
EPCC technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability11 records
Feature9 records
EPCC partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
18 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Rolls-RoycecoreASiMoV Strategic Prosperity Partnership jointly led by EPCC and Rolls-Royce. Ground-breaking 5-year project to develop world's first high-fidelity simulation of a complete gas-turbine engine during operation. Also includes £17m VECTA partnership for sustainable aviation research.
- University of BristolcorePartner university in ASiMoV Strategic Prosperity Partnership alongside Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick.
- University of CambridgecorePartner university in ASiMoV Strategic Prosperity Partnership alongside Bristol, Oxford and Warwick.
- University of OxfordcorePartner university in ASiMoV Strategic Prosperity Partnership alongside Bristol, Cambridge and Warwick.
- University of WarwickcorePartner university in ASiMoV Strategic Prosperity Partnership alongside Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford.
- CFMS (Centre for Modelling & Simulation)minorSmall-to-medium enterprise partner in ASiMoV project contributing to simulation and modelling capabilities.
- ZenotechminorSmall-to-medium enterprise partner in ASiMoV project contributing computational modelling expertise.
- HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise)corePrimary hardware partner for EIDF providing HPE Proliant servers, HPE Apollo GPU servers, HPE SuperDome Flex systems, HPE E-1000 Lustre storage, and ARCS cooling technology.
- University of ManchestercoreFounding partner of Software Sustainability Institute along with Edinburgh, Oxford and Southampton. SSI draws on team of experts from all four universities.
- University of Oxford (Oxford e-Research Centre)coreFounding partner of Software Sustainability Institute along with Edinburgh, Manchester and Southampton.
- University of Southampton (Electronics and Computer Science)coreFounding partner of Software Sustainability Institute along with Edinburgh, Manchester and Oxford.
- Imperial College LondonminorResearch collaboration to produce new high-resolution dataset for studying near-wall turbulence using direct numerical simulation on ARCHER2.
- Queen's University BelfastminorResearch collaboration with Imperial College London and EPCC to produce new high-resolution dataset for studying near-wall turbulence.
- Heriot-Watt UniversitycoreCollaboration on GeoChemFoam project developing world's most advanced open source pore-scale numerical simulator. EPCC contributed parallelisation of OpenFOAM mesh generation for ARCHER2.
- UC ChileminorUC Chile delegation visit to EPCC as part of strategic partnership exploration in AI regulation, supercomputing, and doctoral training. Aligns with UC Chile's 2026-2030 Strategic Plan.
- Vera C. Rubin ObservatorycoreEPCC hosts UK Independent Data Access Centre for Rubin's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with 200+ PB of survey data products.
- Gaia Satellite Project (ESA)minorSomerville used as testbed by Gaia satellite mission completing census of more than one billion stars in the Milky Way.
- ExCALIBUR Programme PartnerscoreEPCC coordinates knowledge exchange across ExCALIBUR (£45.7m UK programme) with ~50 funded projects exploring exascale software, DSLs, RISC-V, FPGAs, and cross-cutting research.
Scale indicators14 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights7 records
EPCC competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS): Spain's national supercomputing center operating the MareNostrum supercomputer. Directly comparable as a European national HPC center providing tier-0 compute, research services, and industry partnerships to academic and commercial users.
- CINECA: Italian national HPC consortium operating Leonardo, one of Europe's most powerful supercomputers. Directly comparable as a national HPC center serving academic and industrial research users across continental Europe.
- Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC): Germany's national supercomputing center operating JUWELS and the upcoming JUPITER exascale system. Directly comparable as a European national HPC facility providing tier-0 services to research and industry.
- CSCS (Swiss National Supercomputing Centre): Switzerland's national HPC center operating the Alps supercomputer. Directly comparable as a national supercomputing facility serving academic researchers with industry access programmes.
- GENCI: France's national HPC agency coordinating supercomputing resources including those at CEA-TGCC and IDRIS. Comparable as a national-level HPC infrastructure provider for French academic and industrial research.
- IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center: Czech Republic's national HPC center operating the Karolina and LUMI systems. Comparable as a Central European national HPC facility serving academic research with growing industry partnerships.
- Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC): US-based academic HPC center operating Frontera and Stampede systems. Comparable as an academic-affiliated national-scale HPC facility providing resources to researchers across multiple scientific domains.
- NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications): US academic HPC center at University of Illinois, operating Delta and providing Blue Waters-class resources. Comparable as a university-affiliated national supercomputing facility with deep software and applications expertise.
Regional players
- Pawsey Supercomputing Centre: Australia's national HPC facility serving astronomy and scientific research. Comparable as a publicly-funded national supercomputing center serving academic and research users, though operating in a different geography (Australia).
Broad incumbents
- Amazon Web Services (AWS HPC): Major hyperscaler providing on-demand HPC and AI compute (EC2 HPC instances, ParallelCluster). Represents the broad commercial alternative to national HPC centers, increasingly competing for commercial HPC workloads that might otherwise flow to EPCC's Cirrus pay-per-use service.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
EPCC social profiles
Digital presenceEPCC compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance4 records
EPCC financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
EPCC leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles9 records
EPCC funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
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EPCC M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about EPCC
What does EPCC do?
EPCC operates and manages national-scale High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure on behalf of the UK research community, including the ARCHER2 national supercomputer, the Cirrus HPC system, the DiRAC Tursa GPU system, and the Edinburgh International Data Facility. It provides researchers, industry, and public-sector organisations with computational resources, data analytics, secure Trusted Research Environments, and an MSc programme in High Performance Computing. The centre also delivers specialist services including applications support, training, software sustainability, and access to FPGA and AI testbeds.
Is EPCC a public or private company?
EPCC is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was EPCC founded?
EPCC was founded in 1987. It employs 101 to 250 people.
Where is EPCC based?
EPCC is headquartered in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does EPCC make money?
Six revenue lines are on record. UK Government Funding is the primary driver. The others are UK and Scottish Government (City Region Deal), EU Funding, industry Partnerships, SSI Grant Funding and strategic Partnership (ASiMoV).
Who are EPCC's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), CINECA, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), CSCS (Swiss National Supercomputing Centre), GENCI, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications). Pawsey Supercomputing Centre is listed as a regional player. Amazon Web Services (AWS HPC) is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does EPCC have an API?
Yes. EPCC provides programmatic access to the Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF) through an S3-compatible endpoint, enabling users to access data using third-party libraries such as Xarray, Zarr-Python, and Dask with lazy loading and parallel analysis capabilities. The SAFE software framework provides web-based user administration for HPC systems. Developer documentation is at catalogue.eidf.ac.uk.
What industry is EPCC in?
EPCC's product category is Supercomputing Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDACAOAD, AI/HPC Converged Systems (Hybrid Training/Simulation), with a secondary code of HDACAOAH, HPC System Software & Resource Management (Schedulers, MPI, OS Images). Its NAICS code is 54151 and its SIC code is 3571.