Zenotech is launching a new two-year project, Aerospace Cloud Services, to provide technology to enable the UK aerospace sector to add competitiveness to simulation-based design by accessing cloud HPC cost-effectively and securely.
With the aim to drive the competitiveness of the UK’s aeronautical sector, Aerospace Cloud Services is supported by BEIS, ATI and Innovate UK under the ATI Programme. As a testament to the demand for this project, aerospace leaders Airbus, Bombardier and Rolls Royce have all submitted letters of support.
Our operational productivity and product performance depend critically upon having remote access to on-demand high performance computing and associated services,” said David Riordan, Engineering Fellow at Bombardier. “The project, whereby “Internet Cloud Services” are employed rather than dedicated computer clusters, is particularly interesting, and requires investigation into data access, security and price-performance. We are pleased that these aspects are considered as key in the project and we will provide detailed requirements and end user feedback to the new systems as they are developed and commissioned for commercial use.”
Aerospace Cloud Services will use Zenotech’s HPC product, EPIC, as its delivery framework, extending it to include specific requirements from the aerospace companies involved. Available online, EPIC has been successfully used commercially for five years and provides secure access to a large volume of HPC resources including cloud and specialist HPC. This framework for accessing computing resources makes EPIC ideal for supporting advanced corporate data analysis and processing algorithms including AI and machine learning.
EPIC will be used to solve the security issues and financial costs that the aerospace industry faces when using cloud HPC. It will help the sector take advantage of the flexibility of cloud high fidelity modeling and simulation, to reduce time to market and increase product maturity on entry to market, while also reducing capital expenditure and meeting strict security and compliance requirements.
We are excited to embark on this important project with leading aerospace companies to solve their specific challenges with cloud HPC and drive UK competitiveness in the market,” said Mike Turner, Zenotech’s product lead. “The technology will enable the sector to take advantage of the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of cloud HPC while maintaining security and compliance standards.”
“As a result of this project, developments in our EPIC product will also be available to customers in our other target sectors from renewables to civil and automotive engineering.”
Zenotech is teaming up with CFMS, an independent, not-for-profit specialist in digital engineering capability, which will focus on interfacing with its HPC resources at the Bristol and Bath Science Park, with an emphasis on the commercial aspects of resource management. Resources from cloud service providers including Amazon AWS, Oracle, Microsoft Azure and others will be included to demonstrate and quantify the benefits of on-demand access.
