£1.3bn UK Tech and AI Plans Shelved

A surge in technology investment, partnerships, and research has occurred during the past few years, especially in the artificial intelligence and quantum segments. However, according to the BBC, the UK Labour government just shelved £1.3bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for tech and AI projects.

Included are recently formed £800m to create an exascale supercomputer at Edinburgh University, £500m for AI Research Resource, funding computing power for AI.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said while the previous administration promised the funds, there was not a budget allocation.

Criticism warns of pushing more entrepreneurs to the US and the UK “losing out” to other countries as well. DSIT responded, “The government is taking difficult and necessary spending decisions across all departments in the face of billions of pounds of unfunded commitments. This is essential to restore economic stability and deliver our national mission for growth.”

The Conservatives claim that their commitment to science, research, and innovation, including UK leadership on AI, was outstanding.

The new funding was announced last year, and Edinburgh University had spent £31m building housing for it. The machine under development was expected to be 50x faster than any current computers in the UK, the University said at the time. The University claims it “has led the way in supercomputing within the UK for decades.”

Last week, DSIT announced that an action plan for identifying new “AI opportunities”- including infrastructure would be created. In a recent report, Tech Nation gave it a market value of $1.1 trillion (£863bn) in the first quarter of 2024.