THE Labour government has announced the indefinite shelving of £1.3 billion in funding initially promised by the Conservatives for the development of new technology, including artificial intelligence.
The funding cuts, first reported by the BBC, include scrapping the £800 million plans for an exascale supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh. The ‘game-changing’ supercomputer, designed to drive breakthroughs in AI, medicine, and clean low-carbon energy, was announced only in October 2023.
An additional £500 million in funding for the AI Research Resource has also been shelved, jeopardizing support for advanced research into building supercomputers for AI development.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) stated that the money was promised by the previous government but never allocated in its budget.
In a statement, the DSIT said: “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 University of Edinburgh’s exascale machine, intended to be 50 times faster than any current computers in the UK, could perform 1 billion billion calculations per second. It was seen as the next frontier in computing power, capable of extremely complex functions with increased speed and precision.
The exascale machine was to be housed in a new £31 million wing of the University’s EPCC Advanced Computing Facility, purpose-built as part of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.
According to the university, exascale research through its £45.7 million ExCALIBUR programme is fundamental to breakthroughs in areas such as drug and vaccine research, climate and weather prediction, and fusion power and green energy sources.
A university spokesperson told the BBC that “[It] is ready to work with the government to support the next phase of this technology in the UK, in order to unlock its benefits for industry, public services and society.”
This reversal of promised funding comes only days after the new UK Science Secretary, Peter Kyle, committed to putting AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to deliver change. On 26th July, the government appointed tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford to deliver a new AI Opportunities Action Plan to identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives.
The Action Plan aims to drive productivity and kickstart economic growth, with IMF estimates suggesting the UK could see productivity gains of up to 1.5% annually through the development and use of AI technology.
