UK Government announces £1.1bln AI hardware plan as Scottish businesses launch green data centre charter
The fund aims to boost British firms developing chips and computing power.
It is the single largest fund investment the British Business bank has ever made.
The government says the global AI chips market is expected to reach US$1trln in the early 2030s and securing just 5% would bring in US$50bln in revenue to the UK with tens of thousands of highly paid jobs in tech.
British companies include Arm, whose chip designs are used in everything from smartphones to AI data centres, and startups like Fractile and Olix, which have raised more than £320mln between them. The AI Hardware Plan intends to back them - and the startups coming up after.
A national AI supercomputer is also aimed for deployment in 2030, to combine proven and next-gen processors with cutting-edge chips that run complex tasks more efficiently than traditional supercomputers.
The British Government wants to see domestically-designed chips form a crucial part of such a heterogeneous mixed chip system.
Of the £750mln allocated to the supercomputer, £400mln will be funnelled towards next-generation chips. Of that, £150mln will go towards buying next-gen inference chips this summer. These chips power day-to-day usage of AI tools.
The government is acting as an early customer. A further £250mln will support the purchasing of more specialised chips.
This plan comes at the same time as the release of a Scottish charter that sets out principles from energy sector businesses for the design and development of all new data centres in Scotland.
The charter addresses renewable energy, energy efficiency, water consumption, district heat and community benefits. It has the support of a range of organisations, including Prosper, the Renewable Energy Association, Ravenscraig Ltd, Heat Network Scotland and Apatura Energy.
