UK government shelves £1.3bn for tech projects

The funding, which was announced by a then-Conservative government in the 2023 Autumn Statement, was allocating hundreds of millions of pounds for computing, and quantum and life sciences. 

£500 million of investment in AI in compute was said to support UK scientists and AI researchers, as well as giving AI startups and businesses access to Edge compute. At the time of the announcement in November 2023, then-Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “I believe that the UK’s incredible science and tech success story is all about having the skills for the future, investment in scale-up and sensible regulation.”

In a statement circulated, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said: “We are absolutely committed to building technology infrastructure that delivers growth and opportunity for people across the UK. 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.”

Industry body Tech UK, as reported by the BBC, said the government needed to make “new proposals quickly” or risk losing out. 

There is also concern over the Edinburgh exascale supercomputer and its future, as £800 million of the funding cut would go towards the creation of this supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh. 

The supercomputer, if created, is capable of performing one billion billion calculations per second, and will provide computing capabilities for research and projects across the UK. 

A report published by the Tech Nation on ‘UK tech in the age of AI’ which looked at tech startups, found they had raised $23.1 billion in 2023 and 1 in 2 technology companies are using AI to improve their offerings.