The UK government released an ambitious £2 billion Compute Roadmap, laying out a decade-long strategy to transform the nation’s computing infrastructure and stake its claim as a global leader in artificial intelligence.
Unveiled by Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle, the plan is billed as a cornerstone of Britain’s AI industrial policy. At its heart is a dramatic expansion of the UK’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), which will grow twenty-fold by 2030—from 21 to 420 AI exaFLOPS. By comparison, that would allow the AIRR to perform in one second what would take one billion people more than 13,000 years using handheld calculators.
“The future of AI will be shaped by the nations that invest in compute,” said Kyle in the foreword. “This roadmap ensures the UK doesn’t just consume AI, but builds and governs it.”
The plan includes the construction of a new £750 million national supercomputer in Edinburgh, expected to go live by 2027. Also, the plan includes the establishment of a network of National Supercomputing Centres. These centres will anchor a user-focused, data-integrated ecosystem. It will support researchers, startups, and public sector bodies across fields ranging from genomics to national defense.
Crucially, the roadmap introduces “AI Growth Zones”—strategic infrastructure hubs capable of powering AI model training and inference workloads. The UK aims to develop at least one zone exceeding 1GW capacity by 2030. It’s part of a broader goal to triple national AI data center capacity to 6GW.
The roadmap also emphasizes sovereignty and sustainability. Through dedicated support for British semiconductor and AI hardware firms, the government aims to “pull through” UK-grown technologies into commercial-scale deployments. Advanced nuclear, renewable integration, and microgrids are all on the table to support energy-hungry AI operations with a green edge.
Public-private partnerships will play a central role in delivery, including cloud and on-premise compute procurement. The plan also guarantees compute access for the Sovereign AI Unit and the AI Security Institute. It ensures the UK’s core AI governance and safety functions have capacity to lead.
“Compute is the engine of modern science and economic resilience,” the report declares. “This roadmap is how we ensure the UK stays in the driver’s seat.”
With global competitors pouring billions into infrastructure, Britain’s Compute Roadmap signals a race for national strategic autonomy in the AI age.
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