The UK government will develop an AI hardware plan, the Technology Secretary announced today, just days after US AI giant OpenAI paused a major UK data centre project. The announcement of the plan emerged today as Liz Kendall said that AI sovereignty was not about “isolation” and trying to “pull up the drawbridge and go it alone”.
Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, Kendall said: “We will continue to use the best technology and welcome inward investment because that’s what our public services and economy demand.”
Her comments come amid government fears about the dominance of US tech giants, which control vast amounts of global tech infrastructure and compute power.
The government recently announced the first investments from its £500m VC fund backing domestic AI startups. The government said it would announce the launch of its AI hardware plan at London Tech Week, which takes place in June.
Kendall said the plan would help secure Britain’s capability in chips and the semiconductor technologies that underpin the full AI hardware stack.
The government has already promised to buy emerging chip technology from British companies in a £100m bid to boost growth by supporting the AI sector.
Kendall has previously said the government would offer guaranteed payments to British startups producing AI hardware that can help sectors such as life sciences and financial services.
Under a “first customer” pledge Kendall’s department will commit in advance to buying AI inference chips that meet set performance standards.
The government is backing British strengths in the parts of the AI stack where it believes the UK has an edge, such as frontier research, compute and infrastructure, while working closely with other countries to shape the global AI ecosystem.
Earlier this month, it was revealed OpenAI’s plans to bring its flagship $500bn AI data centre project to the UK have been put on hold, with the ChatGPT developer citing energy costs and regulatory issues as factors which have halted its plans.
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