Unilever to utilise STFC supercomputer to aid research

Unilever has announced that the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC's) Hartree Centre in Daresbury is to become its new global research and development partner for high performance computing.

The agreement will give the consumer products manufacturer access to the UK's most powerful supercomputer – which is housed at the Cheshire facility – thus greatly accelerating its future product design processes and lead times.

Unilever researchers will be able to run rapid simulations predicting how different product ingredients will interact with each other and how they can be efficiently mixed and processed, unlocking environmental benefits.

The computer, nicknamed the Blue Joule, is capable of more than 15 trillion calculations per second and is linked to the Hartree Centre's cutting-edge 3D Visualisation Suite.

Jim Crilly, senior vice-president of the strategic science group at Unilever, said: "Our partnership with Daresbury's Hartree Centre will give our research and development community a powerful competitive edge when we have fully integrated the high performance computing capabilities of Daresbury."

This comes after prime minister David Cameron recently singled out Unilever for praise as a global innovator during a recent trip to India.