The tech world is showing concern over a major decision taken by the UK government. There is about £1.3bn ($1.7bn) worth of projects that have been cancelled which were meant to enhance UK's capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI). This has raised concerns that Britain might lose its position as an AI technology thought leader.
Key points
There are two main projects being abandoned. The first one was known as Artificial Intelligence Research Resource which aimed at improving the computing capacity of the United Kingdom on AI and was priced at £500m. On the other hand, there was another bigger project which cost £800m that would have seen a supercomputer being built at Edinburgh University. An exascale computer which could perform 1 trillion operations per second.
These were important projects because they would have given to UK what it needed to create and run advanced AI systems. These types of systems require a lot of computational power and data to function properly. If this cancellation happens then, therefore, Britain may lag behind among other countries in terms of AI.
The motivation for this decision by the new labour government was because it wanted to save money. They claim that they found a “financial black hole” from the previous government and need cut in many areas though this could affect their technological industry significantly in future
For now, Britain has been doing well with regards to AI. It has attracted many investments and numerous organizations have adopted AI technology into their systems including some big firms such as Google or Amazon…… According to recent researches, UK is among leading nations globally when it comes to generative AI adoption rates. In fact, without these new builds, keeping pace with other countries making large investments in AI becomes more difficult.
Many are scared about what will happen next after this announcement; thus they want government officials who are responsible for all these things come up with new plans immediately so that UK does not drop back into a weak position regarding AI and any other significant tech industries.
The government still claims that they are dedicated to technology innovation for national development. They are developing a new plan known as AI Opportunities Action Plan. However, the cancellation of these big projects has made many people in the technology sector wonder what will be next on the UK's AI agenda.