Funding opportunity

Isambard-AI and Zenith AIRR supercomputers: Rapid Access route

• Opportunity status: Open
• Funders: UK Research and Innovation, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Innovate UK, Medical Research Council (MRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
• Funding type: Other
• Publication date: 18 August 2025
• Opening date: N/A
• Closing date: Open - no closing date

Last updated: 15 October 2026 - see all updates

Open to researchers at UK-registered micro, small and medium businesses, this access route supports early-stage development of artificial intelligence (AI) products prior to market launch.

Eligible research and development activities include:

• feasibility studies
• industrial research
• experimental development

Each project can access 20,000 graphics processing unit (GPU) hours on the Isambard-AI and Zenith AI Research Resource (AIRR) supercomputers, to be used within three months of project start. No funding is available to successful applicants.

Your organisation must be a UK registered business and have a Companies House registration number.

Who can apply

This opportunity is open to eligible researchers from UK registered micro, small or medium-sized businesses across the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) remit.

To be a project lead, you must have a contract (of longer duration than your proposed project) with your organisation. Your organisation must have a Companies House registration number.

For more information on company sizes, refer to the company accounts guidance.

There is no limit to the number of applications from any one organisation.

We welcome collaborative projects, however this route is not aimed at large research programmes.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all applicants. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone.

What we're looking for

The Rapid Access route, aimed at start-ups and small and medium enterprises, allows for small amounts of compute that can be secured quickly, with a minimum amount of friction. This is to allow them to conduct research and development activities at short notice and respond rapidly to market opportunities.

This route is open to any eligible business, however, we are particularly keen to hear from projects that contribute to delivering against the government’s five missions:

• growing the economy
• an NHS fit for the future
• safer streets
• opportunity for all
• making Britain a clean energy superpower

This route covers activities that fall into the following categories:

• feasibility studies
• industrial research
• experimental development

See more on our categories of research and development.

Resources available

Each application can request 20,000 GPU hours on either of the AIRR services, Isambard-AI or Zenith.

The GPU hours must be used within three months of the project being awarded.

Projects may specify a preferred start date up to one month after submitting their application. While we will make every effort to honour this request, compute resources will be made available immediately upon project approval.

The project start date will not be able to be deferred once the award is made. Project extensions can only be requested on a case-by-case basis and under exceptional circumstances.

This application process is purely for compute resource. No funding is available to successful applicants.

Trusted research and innovation (TR&I)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed in ensuring that effective collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks.

Trusted research and innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary.

Our TR&I principles set out UKRI’s expectations of projects awarded through this route in relation to due diligence for UK and international collaboration.

Subsidy control and state aid where applicable

All AIRR access routes provide awards in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022.

See further information about the Subsidy requirements for this route, including the relevant support ratios.

How to apply

You can use the AIRRPortal to apply to use AIRR.

Apply to use AIRR

See guidance on how to apply to the Rapid Access route. If your application does not follow this guidance, it may be rejected.

General guidance on using the AIRRPortal can be found at:

AIRRPortal: how to apply (UKRI guidance)

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to ensure that:

• all information provided in the application is accurate
• all project information details requested have been provided
• the application meets the eligibility and scope criteria for the chosen access route
• the application contains the additional documents requested in the guidance (templates for the documents to be uploaded are available on the AIRRPortal)

Processing personal data and data sharing

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will need to collect some personal information to manage your application.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.

UKRI will need to share the application and any personal information that it contains with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) so that they can participate in the assessment process.

See more information on how DSIT uses personal information.

How we will assess your application

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Rapid Access applications will be subject to a light touch review by a member of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) delivery team.

The aim is that this will be done on a weekly cadence, with a maximum time-to-resource-access of two weeks after the date of submission.

The UKRI and BIST delivery team will use the following assessment criteria:

• are the project objectives in scope for the AIRR programme?
• has the project demonstrated that access to AIRR would add value to the project?
• have any concerns been raised regarding the project compliance information?

What happens if you receive an award offer

If your project application is successful, UKRI will send the project lead a formal offer letter, which will contain the award terms and conditions, any subsidy notice required and a link to the online equality monitoring form.

When the equality monitoring form has been completed, the project lead will be emailed a project link from the AIRRPortal.

By logging in to the AIRRPortal and accessing the compute resources for your project, you will have accepted the UKRI terms and conditions.

Top-up policy

You can request a one-off, additional 50% to your original award (subject to a subsidy re-assessment) if you have used over 90% of your original allocation and have sufficient time left on the project to use the additional GPUh.

Contact details

Contact us at airr@ukri.org to ask for guidance.

Additional info

Background

The AIRR programme intends to address the significant shortage of publicly available computing resources in the UK. In January 2025 the government announced expanding AIRR capacity by at least 20 times by 2030, as part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan.

The government has committed to spending an extra £1 billion to scale up our compute power by a factor of 20, giving Britain the power to become an AI leader.

AIRR is a partnership between:

• UK government
• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
• University of Cambridge
• University of Bristol
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
• Nvidia
• AMD
• Intel
• Dell

AIRR compute clusters

The government is investing significantly in the Isambard-AI and Zenith AIRR clusters and will have invested over £350 million by 2030.

Isambard-AI (University of Bristol)

The Isambard-AI facility is the UK’s most powerful public compute facility. It is made up of 5,448 Nvidia GH200 Grace-Hopper superchips (supplied by HPE) and operated by the University of Bristol at Bristol’s National Composites Centre.

See further information on the Isambard-AI system.

Zenith (University of Cambridge)

Built in partnership with AMD, Dell Technologies and StackHPC, Zenith is the UK’s largest AI-for-science platform. It combines AI and scientific computing to help researchers tackle complex challenges, including cancer research, climate modelling and clean energy. Zenith provides the computing power needed to support the next generation of scientific discovery.

See further information on the Zenith system.

Supporting documents

Guidance on how to apply to the Rapid Access route: AIRR Rapid Access route (UKRI guidance)

General guidance on using the AIRRPortal

Updates

• 15 October 2026
  Dawn supercomputer resource removed and Zenith supercomputer resource added. 'What happens if you receive an award offer' added in 'How we assess your application'
• 23 September 2025
  Updated 'Description', 'Resources available'. 'Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)' and 'How to apply' sections.