The Metropolitan Office has released a new supercomputer that says it can produce better predictions.

The Weather Bureau said detailed estimates 14 days in advance will become the norm, and rainfall forecasts will be more accurate.

The new cloud-based system was launched on Monday and could perform $6 billion per second of computing.

It is operated by Microsoft's cloud-based Azure, making it the first system that Met Office itself doesn't run.

It ends a long wait for weather forecasting technology, first announced in 2020 and is initially scheduled for 2022.

According to the Metropolitan Office, this is the world's first super-supercomputer dedicated to weather and climate science.

It said one of the benefits of the technology will be to improve airport forecasts, while also providing more detailed information to the energy sector to help it plan potential blackouts and waves.

It said supercomputers, fully powered by renewable energy, will also improve forecasts of challenges posed by climate change, such as floods and wildfires.

The new supercomputer can perform more than four times the number of calculations per second, which is its predecessor, which contains a 1.8m core processor.

Although the exact location of the infrastructure is a secret, Azure Supercomputing Services is physically located in southern England and separates in two data centers.

According to Charles Ewen, chief information officer of the Metropolitan Office, after recent hacks by British agencies such as M&S and co-ops, cybersecurity is “everyone’s idea”.

But he said he was satisfied with the security of the new system and was “very confident that it was a big enhancement” in his predecessor.

“Weather and climate intelligence have never been a critical moment,” said Simon Vosper, scientific director of the Metropolitan Office.

“We know the changes in climate because we know the risks of dangerous weather.

“Supercomputers will unleash our ability to deliver those improved services where needed.”

In February 2020, the UK government pledged £1.2 billion for the project and said the old supercomputers would last for life in 2022.

Mr Juventus said the three-year delay was largely due to the carbon dioxide pandemic and its impact on silicon, and the Metropolitan Office emphasized the need to continue to provide existing services during the conversion period.

“I’m very confident that the Metropolitan Office would be better accommodated with emerging methods and technologies such as artificial intelligence,” he said.

Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service is one of the world's largest data center providers and provides a large portion of the artificial intelligence infrastructure.