The UK has unveiled a £1.1bn plan to build domestic artificial intelligence computing capacity, including a national AI supercomputer and significant funding for home-grown chip development, as countries race to secure control over advanced computing infrastructure.

The strategy was announced as part of a wider push to strengthen the UK’s sovereign computing capability, with investments spanning supercomputing, semiconductor design, skills development, and venture funding for AI hardware startups. The British government said the plan is aimed at improving national security, boosting innovation, and supporting economic growth.

A key component of the plan is a £750m national AI supercomputer scheduled for deployment in 2030. It will use a mixed chip architecture combining existing processors with next-generation hardware designed to handle complex AI workloads more efficiently.

The UK government is also allocating £400m from this budget toward next-generation chips, including £150m for inference chips to be purchased this summer from British-based firms. Additional funds will support later-stage chip procurement as technologies mature.

The initiative also includes a £120m AI hardware innovation programme to help British companies design and test new chip technologies, alongside £45m in skills funding to train engineers, chip designers, and researchers.

Chip race heats up

The plan comes as global demand for AI compute continues to rise sharply, driven by large-scale model training and deployment across industries. Governments and companies are now competing to secure access to advanced chips and computing infrastructure, which have become central to AI development.

A fund led by US venture capital firm Playground Global, with backing of up to £150m from the British Business Bank, will also invest in UK-based AI hardware companies. The British Business Bank said this represents its largest single fund investment to date.

UK technology secretary Liz Kendall said: “AI is the defining currency of economic and hard power in today’s world and the countries that control the hardware behind it will hold the keys to the future.”

She added that the UK aims to strengthen domestic capability by supporting chip design and production, while ensuring the benefits of AI development remain within the country.

Building computer power

The national AI supercomputer will form part of the UK’s broader AI Research Resource, which already includes systems such as Isambard-AI and Zenith. The goal is to provide researchers, startups, and public services with greater access to high-performance computing.

Officials said the system will combine proven and next-generation processors in what is known as a heterogeneous architecture, allowing different chip types to handle different workloads more efficiently.

The government is also expanding its semiconductor skills pipeline, including doctoral training centres and undergraduate bursaries. The number of supported students is expected to rise in the coming years as demand for chip expertise grows.

The plan is part of a wider effort to position the UK as a competitive player in the global AI hardware and computing race, where the US and China currently dominate infrastructure and chip design.