The University of Sheffield, in collaboration with accelerated computing pioneer NVIDIA, are using their combined expertise to support the UK government’s ambition to become a global leader in AI.
Together, they are focused on using advanced technologies to push research forward, while also equipping the academic community with the skills needed to lead in AI. This work is directly aligned with the UK's industrial strategy, where the University of Sheffield is playing an active role in the digital and technologies sector.
NVIDIA is also helping in this effort, strengthening the nation's innovation ecosystem by delivering the computing infrastructure required to drive AI, scientific research, and complex simulations across a wide range of industries.
Transforming research
NVIDIA has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. From the most advanced scientific simulation to cutting edge reasoning models, Nvidia builds a full stack optimised computing system to produce intelligence of all kinds.
Over the past 15 months, the University of Sheffield has been utilising NVIDIA technology to drive several key research activities forward. Some of these include:
6G
The National 6G Radio Systems Facility at the University of Sheffield is using NVIDIA Aerial research portfolio to explore the future of communication. Led by Professor Timothy O’Farrell, the innovations being developed using NVIDIA tools and platforms will enhance the performance and efficiency of 6G communication systems, both within the UK and internationally.
Autonomous wildfire detection
The University is conducting research on introducing autonomy in uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) as part of autonomous wildfire detection and localisation with swarms of UAVs. Led by Professor Lyudmila Mihaylova, the implementations adopt NVIDIA Jetson robotics computers, which are essential for achieving real-time efficient performance in tasks requiring high computations such as on-board image and video processing and live streaming.
Digitalisation and instrumentation of manufacturing processes
Professor Ash Tiwari is the RAEng/Airbus Research Chair in Digital Manufacturing at the University. NVIDIA solutions have been an integral part of his research, which focuses on the digitalisation and instrumentation of manufacturing processes and bridges fundamental machine learning techniques with industrial applications, turning data into actionable insights.
Deep learning frameworks optimised for NVIDIA AI infrastructure have been used to create sophisticated predictive manufacturing analytics. NVIDIA Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and NVIDIA CUDA-X (Compute Unified Device Architecture) acceleration provide the high-performance computing power needed to run these complex tasks. NVIDIA Isaac Sim, a reference robotics simulation framework, for robotics and factory simulations while NVIDIA Jetson for edge AI is being used for IoT (Internet of Things) monitoring systems.
Understanding the cause of railway defects using digital twins
The University is working with Network Rail to carry out research on the causes of railway defects. Using NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs and an NVIDIA-accelerated software framework called FLAME GPU, researchers are modeling how rail materials deform under stress. Led by Professor David Fletcher and Professor Paul Richmond, this approach is significantly faster than traditional methods, and the results are closely matching real-world experiments. The findings will be presented at the Contact Mechanics 2025 conference in Tokyo.
Supported by the NVIDIA Applied Accelerator Programme, FLAME GPU (using NVIDIA CUDA and NVIDIA accelerated computing) is a piece of software for simulating large complex systems and obtaining simulation performance in orders of magnitude beyond what is achievable with other software tools.
Upskilling and AI education
The Centre for Machine Intelligence (CMI) is the University’s strategic £3.64 million investment dedicated to forging AI research, education, and training for the benefit of society. Through a continued collaboration with the CMI, NVIDIA actively supports upskilling and AI education through a range of initiatives designed for academics, researchers, and students.
Last year, NVIDIA sponsored ‘AI Best Practices Afternoons’ at the University, providing a direct way for the academic community to learn about the latest tools, best practices, and optimisation techniques for AI development. The goal was to ensure that the academic community is not only aware of AI advancements but also has the practical skills to apply them to their own research and turn discoveries into real-world applications.
Professor James Marshall, Director of the Centre for Machine Intelligence said:
“The collaborations between NVIDIA and CMI directly support our core mission of advancing world-class AI research, training the next generation of researchers, and turning innovations into real-world solutions. I am delighted with what we have achieved so far, and I’m excited to see what’s to come in the future.”
Looking ahead, NVIDIA will deliver further upskilling initiatives and a series of activities, including additional research collaborations, at the University over the next twelve months. Some of these include:
NVIDIA Academic Grant programme
Professor Tim O’Farrell has been awarded an NVIDIA Academic Grant, which provides researchers with access to world-class computing resources, and more applications are in the pipeline.
NVIDIA Inception programme
The NVIDIA Inception programme is designed to help start-ups discover new AI opportunities, build world-class technologies, and grow their businesses. The following University spinouts are either in the programme now, or will be eligible to apply soon:
- Opteran: Opteran, an Inception programme member, provides robust, efficient, and low-cost solutions for robotics and autonomy by replicating the algorithms found in natural brains. Opteran is exploring connecting their unique sensing and navigation technologies and workflows into NVIDIA Isaac Sim, enabling robot developers to explore leveraging Opteran technology.
- Cybpass: CybPass, an Inception programme member, is building AI security assurance agents that mimic human cybersecurity experts. Cybpass is planning to use NVIDIA tools like NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, NVIDIA TensorRT, NVIDIA Dynamo,NVIDIA Morpheus, and NVIDIA DGX Cloud to train their agents faster, scale security simulations wider, and deploy them more efficiently — making their solution more enterprise-ready and credible for customers in high-risk, regulated industries.
- Twinality: Twinality, an aspiring spinout, is an innovative robotics software that is entering the market with the ambition to make automation and industrial safety mainstream and accessible to every SME, accelerating the UK's manufacturing productivity and supporting wider adoption of robotics across the world.
Student knowledge exchange initiatives
Led by Professor Heidi Christensen, NVIDIA and Sheffield’s School of Computer Science are planning a range of collaborative student knowledge exchange activities, including guest lectures, teaching kits and using NVIDIA tools for student projects.
Professor Ash Tiwari, Deputy Vice President for Innovation at the University, said: “With our proven track record in contributing to impactful innovation-led growth, we are thrilled to collaborate with NVIDIA on initiatives that will help the UK government achieve its goal of becoming a global AI leader. I'm particularly excited about our current and planned collaborations in upskilling, research, innovation, commercialisation, and student knowledge exchange. I hope this partnership will continue to deepen and expand, delivering impactful growth for years to come.”
"NVIDIA's advanced computing technologies are enabling breakthrough research that will transform how industries operate and innovate," said Andy Grant , EMEA Director – Supercomputing and AI, Higher Education and Research at NVIDIA. "Our collaboration with the University of Sheffield is fostering a new wave of companies that are translating these cutting-edge research capabilities into real-world solutions."