UK launches £1 billion AI hardware plan featuring a 2030 supercomputer built with British-designed chips

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This week, @Keir_Starmer, @RachelReevesMP, @leicesterliz and I have announced a major next step for the UK’s AI trajectory 🇬🇧🚀

*𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬*

A bumper £1bn+ UK AI Hardware Plan ✅ £750m for a national AI supercomputer, buying British AI chips ✅ A major AMD commitment to UK AI compute startup research (thank you, @LisaSu) ✅ £45m in AI chip skills funding, inc a ramp up of over 500+ brand new AI chip PhDs ✅ @BritishBBank backing a brand new early-stage UK hardware fund with £150m, @Playground_VC, led by ex-Intel CEO @PGelsinger ✅ Expanded Scaling Inference Lab, so UK compute startups can get rapid validation

*𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐬*

👉🏽 𝑃𝑟𝑜-𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: Nobel winner @baselinescene will chair a prize that rewards examples of pro-worker adoption 👉🏽 𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: @RIBA and @SciTechgovuk will collaborate to reward beautiful and well-designed datacentres 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ: Nobel winner @baselinescene to chair brand new institute, so British workers are first to be supported robustly through AI’s economic impact, with data from 20 large companies 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑢𝑚: @SciTechgovuk and @bcs will develop robust guidance to grow the UK AI assurance sector 👉🏽 𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑡: OS builder fund, to give 160k+ GPU hours to winners of OS hackathon; OS mentoring scheme to plug OS talent into govt builders; OS Dev Board, bringing 10 young OS developers into Govt AI strategy process

*𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬*

🤝 Skills Boost update: 1.7m courses delivered 🤝 Tech First Update: 100k+ young people backed already, 900 scholarss, 2k people on track for sustained AI roles 🤝 AI Early Careers Jobs Alliance: employers + trade unions + young people + govt fundamentally redesigning paths into jobs 🤝 North East Jobs Pilot: AI Growth Zone will support young people not in education, employment, training to get agentic AI jobs, backed by @Accenture, @Microsoft, @sageuk 🤝 Tech First North West Pilot: 5 areas to pilot support for young people at risk of leaving school after GCSEs, getting them onto free AI bootcamps

*𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐏𝐋𝐂 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲*

⛰️ AI Sector Champion Plans: Major plans to drive adoption, with £200m to back first set of ideas ⛰️ AI Growth Lab: an advisory lab launched to give adopters clear, practical info on regulation ⛰️ Major robotics adoption regulatory innovation initiative ⛰️ Spärck update: expanded £1m scholarship, 50 more PhDs put into AI placements to drive adoption

*𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲; 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐭𝐨𝐨*

➡️ £2bn from @AMD in UK AI infra ➡️ @nebiusai investing £1.7bn with three major @nvidia deployments ➡️ Major new MoU with @Cisco to support Barnsley use AI in aid of local public servants and to help local NHS ➡️ Major new MoU with @ElevenLabs to support access for those with visual impairments and to secure AI ➡️ Major new MoU with @synthesiaIO to ramp up AI skills and spread opportunity ➡️ @OQC_Tech raising £260m, backed by largest @BritishBBank investment to date ➡️ @reflection_a expanding into UK, hiring 100+ employees within 12 months, and 1,000 within 3 years (welcome @MishaLaskin) ➡️ @Replit announcing UK office opening ➡️ @amazon announcing £1bn investment in Midlands, creating 2,800 jobs ➡️ @Arkdatacentres investing £807m to expand existing campus ➡️ @n8n_io investing in further 200 AI jobs over next 3 years, thanks @JanOberhauser ➡️ @ErosUniverse_, leading Bollywood distributor, investing £265m and backing 3,000 jobs in AI and creative sectors ➡️ @ARLQ_AI investing £45m for UK R&D ➡️ @CocoRobotics announcing UK debut with major Deliveroo partnership ➡️ Midlands Mindforge go live to invest in Midlands firms

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Matt Clifford@matthewclifford

Lots of good stuff in the UK's new AI Hardware Plan, announced by @leicesterliz today. Great to see it building on both the AI Opportunities Action Plan and @ARIA_research's work on the Scaling Inference Lab. Lots to do, but this is smart, focused and appropriately ambitious.

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Matt Clifford@matthewclifford

Full text here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-ai-hardware-plan/uk-ai-hardware-plan#executivesummary

Matt Clifford@matthewclifford

Lots of good stuff in the UK's new AI Hardware Plan, announced by @leicesterliz today. Great to see it building on both the AI Opportunities Action Plan and @ARIA_research's work on the Scaling Inference Lab. Lots to do, but this is smart, focused and appropriately ambitious.

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Seth Lazar@sethlazar

Holy mackerel. Don't really follow UK politics any more—I hear this lot aren't the most popular right now—but this is some impressive stuff on AI

Kanishka Narayan MP@KanishkaNarayan

This week, @Keir_Starmer, @RachelReevesMP, @leicesterliz and I have announced a major next step for the UK’s AI trajectory 🇬🇧🚀

*𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬*

A bumper £1bn+ UK AI Hardware Plan ✅ £750m for a national AI supercomputer, buying British AI chips ✅ A major AMD commitment to UK AI compute startup research (thank you, @LisaSu) ✅ £45m in AI chip skills funding, inc a ramp up of over 500+ brand new AI chip PhDs ✅ @BritishBBank backing a brand new early-stage UK hardware fund with £150m, @Playground_VC, led by ex-Intel CEO @PGelsinger ✅ Expanded Scaling Inference Lab, so UK compute startups can get rapid validation

*𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐬*

👉🏽 𝑃𝑟𝑜-𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: Nobel winner @baselinescene will chair a prize that rewards examples of pro-worker adoption 👉🏽 𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: @RIBA and @SciTechgovuk will collaborate to reward beautiful and well-designed datacentres 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ: Nobel winner @baselinescene to chair brand new institute, so British workers are first to be supported robustly through AI’s economic impact, with data from 20 large companies 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑢𝑚: @SciTechgovuk and @bcs will develop robust guidance to grow the UK AI assurance sector 👉🏽 𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑡: OS builder fund, to give 160k+ GPU hours to winners of OS hackathon; OS mentoring scheme to plug OS talent into govt builders; OS Dev Board, bringing 10 young OS developers into Govt AI strategy process

*𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬*

🤝 Skills Boost update: 1.7m courses delivered 🤝 Tech First Update: 100k+ young people backed already, 900 scholarss, 2k people on track for sustained AI roles 🤝 AI Early Careers Jobs Alliance: employers + trade unions + young people + govt fundamentally redesigning paths into jobs 🤝 North East Jobs Pilot: AI Growth Zone will support young people not in education, employment, training to get agentic AI jobs, backed by @Accenture, @Microsoft, @sageuk 🤝 Tech First North West Pilot: 5 areas to pilot support for young people at risk of leaving school after GCSEs, getting them onto free AI bootcamps

*𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐏𝐋𝐂 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲*

⛰️ AI Sector Champion Plans: Major plans to drive adoption, with £200m to back first set of ideas ⛰️ AI Growth Lab: an advisory lab launched to give adopters clear, practical info on regulation ⛰️ Major robotics adoption regulatory innovation initiative ⛰️ Spärck update: expanded £1m scholarship, 50 more PhDs put into AI placements to drive adoption

*𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲; 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐭𝐨𝐨*

➡️ £2bn from @AMD in UK AI infra ➡️ @nebiusai investing £1.7bn with three major @nvidia deployments ➡️ Major new MoU with @Cisco to support Barnsley use AI in aid of local public servants and to help local NHS ➡️ Major new MoU with @ElevenLabs to support access for those with visual impairments and to secure AI ➡️ Major new MoU with @synthesiaIO to ramp up AI skills and spread opportunity ➡️ @OQC_Tech raising £260m, backed by largest @BritishBBank investment to date ➡️ @reflection_a expanding into UK, hiring 100+ employees within 12 months, and 1,000 within 3 years (welcome @MishaLaskin) ➡️ @Replit announcing UK office opening ➡️ @amazon announcing £1bn investment in Midlands, creating 2,800 jobs ➡️ @Arkdatacentres investing £807m to expand existing campus ➡️ @n8n_io investing in further 200 AI jobs over next 3 years, thanks @JanOberhauser ➡️ @ErosUniverse_, leading Bollywood distributor, investing £265m and backing 3,000 jobs in AI and creative sectors ➡️ @ARLQ_AI investing £45m for UK R&D ➡️ @CocoRobotics announcing UK debut with major Deliveroo partnership ➡️ Midlands Mindforge go live to invest in Midlands firms

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Matt Clifford@matthewclifford

@ShakeelHashim Shakeel, please withdraw your slander on making data centres beautiful immediately!

Shakeel@ShakeelHashim

Trying to establish a UK AI chip industry is a good idea. The economics institute will hopefully do good work too. The rest of this is a whole lotta nothing

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Matt Clifford@matthewclifford

@KanishkaNarayan @SciTechgovuk Full set of v good announcements here:

Kanishka Narayan MP@KanishkaNarayan

This week, @Keir_Starmer, @RachelReevesMP, @leicesterliz and I have announced a major next step for the UK’s AI trajectory 🇬🇧🚀

*𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬*

A bumper £1bn+ UK AI Hardware Plan ✅ £750m for a national AI supercomputer, buying British AI chips ✅ A major AMD commitment to UK AI compute startup research (thank you, @LisaSu) ✅ £45m in AI chip skills funding, inc a ramp up of over 500+ brand new AI chip PhDs ✅ @BritishBBank backing a brand new early-stage UK hardware fund with £150m, @Playground_VC, led by ex-Intel CEO @PGelsinger ✅ Expanded Scaling Inference Lab, so UK compute startups can get rapid validation

*𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐬*

👉🏽 𝑃𝑟𝑜-𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: Nobel winner @baselinescene will chair a prize that rewards examples of pro-worker adoption 👉🏽 𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑒: @RIBA and @SciTechgovuk will collaborate to reward beautiful and well-designed datacentres 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐸𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑠 𝐼𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ: Nobel winner @baselinescene to chair brand new institute, so British workers are first to be supported robustly through AI’s economic impact, with data from 20 large companies 👉🏽 𝐴𝐼 𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑢𝑚: @SciTechgovuk and @bcs will develop robust guidance to grow the UK AI assurance sector 👉🏽 𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑡: OS builder fund, to give 160k+ GPU hours to winners of OS hackathon; OS mentoring scheme to plug OS talent into govt builders; OS Dev Board, bringing 10 young OS developers into Govt AI strategy process

*𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬*

🤝 Skills Boost update: 1.7m courses delivered 🤝 Tech First Update: 100k+ young people backed already, 900 scholarss, 2k people on track for sustained AI roles 🤝 AI Early Careers Jobs Alliance: employers + trade unions + young people + govt fundamentally redesigning paths into jobs 🤝 North East Jobs Pilot: AI Growth Zone will support young people not in education, employment, training to get agentic AI jobs, backed by @Accenture, @Microsoft, @sageuk 🤝 Tech First North West Pilot: 5 areas to pilot support for young people at risk of leaving school after GCSEs, getting them onto free AI bootcamps

*𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐏𝐋𝐂 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲*

⛰️ AI Sector Champion Plans: Major plans to drive adoption, with £200m to back first set of ideas ⛰️ AI Growth Lab: an advisory lab launched to give adopters clear, practical info on regulation ⛰️ Major robotics adoption regulatory innovation initiative ⛰️ Spärck update: expanded £1m scholarship, 50 more PhDs put into AI placements to drive adoption

*𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲; 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐣𝐨𝐛𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐭𝐨𝐨*

➡️ £2bn from @AMD in UK AI infra ➡️ @nebiusai investing £1.7bn with three major @nvidia deployments ➡️ Major new MoU with @Cisco to support Barnsley use AI in aid of local public servants and to help local NHS ➡️ Major new MoU with @ElevenLabs to support access for those with visual impairments and to secure AI ➡️ Major new MoU with @synthesiaIO to ramp up AI skills and spread opportunity ➡️ @OQC_Tech raising £260m, backed by largest @BritishBBank investment to date ➡️ @reflection_a expanding into UK, hiring 100+ employees within 12 months, and 1,000 within 3 years (welcome @MishaLaskin) ➡️ @Replit announcing UK office opening ➡️ @amazon announcing £1bn investment in Midlands, creating 2,800 jobs ➡️ @Arkdatacentres investing £807m to expand existing campus ➡️ @n8n_io investing in further 200 AI jobs over next 3 years, thanks @JanOberhauser ➡️ @ErosUniverse_, leading Bollywood distributor, investing £265m and backing 3,000 jobs in AI and creative sectors ➡️ @ARLQ_AI investing £45m for UK R&D ➡️ @CocoRobotics announcing UK debut with major Deliveroo partnership ➡️ Midlands Mindforge go live to invest in Midlands firms

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Walter Goodwin@goodwin_ml

@matthewclifford @leicesterliz @ARIA_research This is great work. Congratulations @leicesterliz @KanishkaNarayan!

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Finance Forecaster@SilkRdMoney

@matthewclifford Good plan. The £400m chip procurement is the smartest bit - demand signals beat another seed fund for the valley of death. Harder question: does the broader environment let these firms scale here, or does value migrate to clearer frameworks?

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Seth Lazar@sethlazar

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz This is really impressive

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West Ward (Restore Britain, Advance UK) 🇬🇧@lithologuy

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz Cool, BUT the RIBA seem to only like the worst looking buildings I have ever seen.

They like houses that look like data centres 🤣😭

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Not my Prime Minister. Not my Government.@ontvnow

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz Read the room sir, I'm pretty sure the entire country would prefer this money to be spent on some actual policing and making citizens safe, than quietly disappearing into the pockets of a few lucky Labour cronies under the guise of "AI".

What does this AI do to solve Belfast?

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Mark Kingsley-Williams@Mark_A_K_W

Pitiful that this is all the UK can scrape together for AI, and that Starmer and Reeves so desperate to be associated with it as they contemplate the end of their ministerial careers after a two year train wreck of 'Starmer's Government'. There are even 1 year old startups with valuations higher than than £1bn.

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Si G@FlackumphB

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz thats an embarssingly small investment. £250 billion in the US - in one state alone.

no doubt the recipients of this pissy little amount will be friends of yours

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Tarique Sha@tariquesha1

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz great to see the UK investing not just in AI research but also in the infrastructure,talent and jobs needed to support long term growth

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abhishek@abhishek_tri

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz top man Kanishka! What a brilliant effort

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THE KING OF BEES 🏗️🌐🔰@THEKINGOFBEES2

@mattparlmer There is a data center that will probably cost half of this being built around two miles from my house. I don't think it's a notable project more than 10 miles away.

If they decide to permit it it should probably take them about a year or two to finish.

Never change, 🇬🇧

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Vicious Ricardian@ViciousRicardan

@mattparlmer This reads like a headline from the past in Snow Crash.

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Thomas Power@thomaspower

This is exactly the kind of ambition the UK needs.

For decades Britain consumed technology invented elsewhere. This plan signals an intention to build the full stack: chips, compute, skills, research, adoption and jobs.

What stands out is the focus on people as well as infrastructure. A £1bn supercomputer matters, but helping workers, students and businesses adopt AI matters even more. Technology creates value only when people use it.

The real test now is execution. Can the UK move fast enough? Can we turn PhDs into companies, companies into scale-ups, and scale-ups into global champions?

If we can, AI could become for the 2030s what financial services were for the 1990s and fintech for the 2010s: a major driver of British growth, productivity and opportunity.

Promising signs. Now the hard work begins.

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Dog TV@Resistance0079

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz Perplexity scanned all these companies and has listed a total of 3 jobs between them that support young people. This is all a funding ruse to build data centres.

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Michelle@cashandcarrots

@KanishkaNarayan @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP @leicesterliz How about restoring library, arts, museums and culture funding?

You know, actual real world thought, expression, creativity and knowledge?

Or are we getting more AI slop that tailors CVs for parrots?

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