Met Office Supercomputer Programme

Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £1.2bn
Published schedule: 01/01/2018 – 11/07/2032
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: Charles Ewen

What the project is for

Delivering our future Supercomputing capability through the procurement and installation of a replacement and increased Supercomputing Capacity. This includes storage, observation networks, post processing systems and services, tooling for data exploitation delivery and support resources throughout the investment lifetime, data centre hosting, networking security services and decommissioning.

Departmental delivery commentary

Compared to financial year 24/25 Q4, the NISTA/SRO Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) rating at 25/26 Q4 remained at Amber This is primarily due to‚ supplier delivery delays have delayed our Science Plans which has impacted the service improvements leading to a risk in Socio Economic Benefits realisation.

Schedule

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's end-date at 25/26-Q4 remained at 11/07/2032 This is primarily due to the following factors‚ No changes to length of the supplier contractual agreement, this remains the closure target for this investment.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost at 25/26-Q4 (measured in £m) remained at £1242 to £1242 This is primarily due to the length of the contract being unchanged and we are developing interventions, redirecting the delayed spend to help recover at risk benefits. The delays are changing in year spend profiles, but this does not alter the expected whole life cost.

Benefits

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's departmentally agreed Benefits at 25/26-Q4 (measured in £m) decreased from £14,027 to 12,710 This is primarily due to the following factors: • Introduction of the new climate SEB methodology that has been updated to align with the updated approach, approved in the Valuing the Met Office (2024) Study, which itself was informed in 2024 when The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) commissioned a study of the value of Met Office climate science and services as part of an evaluation of the value of the Hadley Centre Climate Programme. This revised approach was, in turn, incorporated into the 2024 study of the economic value of the Met Office, completed by London Economics. •   Latest external economic data including latest GDP, inflation and Euro exchange figures from the March 2026 OBR Fiscal report and updated UK Airport Movement figures for 2025 from the Civil Aviation Authority.