Government Axes £1.3 Billion for Next-Gen Supercomputer, AI Projects

Published on August 2, 2024

Pledged funding for a next-generation supercomputer and other AI projects has been cancelled to save £1.3 billion, the government confirmed on Friday. Officials said no funding had been allocated when the Conservatives made the commitment last year. The Labour government said it’s making “difficult and necessary spending decisions” across Whitehall to balance the books and will set out its own plan for building AI infrastructure needed in the UK. Andrew Griffith, the shadow science secretary, criticised Labour, saying it has “lower ambitions for UK tech sector.” The now-cancelled supercomputer would have been the UK’s first exascale supercomputer, which can make a quadrillion calculations each second, the equivalent of 5 million laptops....

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