The new government has shelved £1.3bn of “unfunded” investment for UK tech and artificial intelligence (AI) projects promised by the previous administration.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said no new funding for the programmes had been allocated in the previous government’s spending plans, and therefore will not be taken forward.
The shelved programmes include £800m for the creation of an ‘exascale’ supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh and £500m of additional funding for the AI Research Resource, a scheme which helps fund computing power for AI.
An additional £300m committed to the AI Research Resource has been committed to, the government said, as this funding was already in place, has been distributed, and will continue as planned.
“We are absolutely committed to building technology infrastructure that delivers growth and opportunity for people across the UK,” a DSIT spokesman 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 government said it was making its own plans to invest in computer infrastructure as part of the development of its AI Opportunities Action Plan, which is being led by industry expert Matt Clifford, who played a leading role in organising the global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park last year.
“We have launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan which will identify how we can bolster our compute infrastructure to better suit our needs and consider how AI and other emerging technologies can best support our new industrial strategy,” the DSIT spokesman said.
The future of the Edinburgh supercomputer project remains unclear, with the University of Edinburgh having already spent £31m on a new wing of its advanced computing facility to house the supercomputer, which it had hoped to begin installing in 2025.
