To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to provide additional funding for the development of AI.
Answered on
26 October 2023
Through the National AI Strategy, the Government is committed to continued investment in the AI ecosystem to make sure they have the skills and infrastructure needed to maintain our position of global leadership, drive adoption of AI through all sectors and regions, and get the governance of AI right.
We have invested over £2.5bn into the AI ecosystem since 2014, and made further commitments this year including £900m for an exascale supercomputer and an AI Research Resource. This has led to investment in the Bristol-based Isambard-AI supercomputing facility, which will be a cornerstone of the AI Research Resource and one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, as well as the selection of Edinburgh as the home of the new exascale facility.
In March, the Government confirmed, via UK Research and Innovation, an additional £117 million for Centres for Doctoral Training in AI to deliver thousands more research PhDs, which comes on top of the £100m already allocated in 2018; £80M for up to eight consortia-based hubs that will deliver world-class fundamental research including in responsible AI, and in April launched the £100m BridgeAI programme, to help drive AI adoption in low-AI-maturity sectors.
The Government also announced the Frontier AI Taskforce, with £100m startup funding, to help ensure the UK is at the forefront of AI safety research, with the biggest concentration globally of leading frontier AI researchers and experts working with government.