The UK Government is aiming to launch a new national supercomputer by 2030.. The government said the new AI Hardware Plan, announced by the Technology Secretary Liz Kendall at London Tech Week this week, sets out how the government will “back British companies developing the chips and semiconductor technologies behind AI, while also investing in the scientists, engineers and technicians needed to turn new ideas into products and good jobs in the UK.”. New UK supercomputer. The plan includes £750 million ($1.bn) for a new national AI supercomputer due to be deployed at the University of Edinburgh in 2030. It will succeed ARCHER2, the flagship supercomputer already in operation at Edinburgh.. Full details around any planned system were not shared, but some £400 million ($535.6m) will go towards “next-generation chips,” £150 million ($200.9m) of which will be used to buy next-generation inference chips. A further £250 million ($334.8m) will support the purchase of more specialized chips.. The government said it wanted to “see British-designed chips form a crucial part of the system.”. A tender process for the system will launch soon.. New hardware and skills program. £120 million ($160.7m) will fund a new AI Hardware Innovation Programme to give British companies the funding to design, develop and test innovative novel chips.. At least £20 million ($26.8m) of the program will expand the Scaling Inference Lab, delivered by the UK’s Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA) and CommonAI.. Oriole Networks, working with AMD through the Lab, will deploy what the government said will be the world’s first large-scale AI system using purely photonic networking at the site. It will use AMD Instinct GPUs and AMD EPYC CPUs and will be Oriole’s first commercial deployment. AMD said it was investing £2bn ($2.7bn) in the UK over five years as part of this and other announcements.. £45 million ($60.3m) will go towards new support for skills, backing doctoral training and undergraduate bursaries to train more engineers, chip designers and technicians. The plan includes a new £12 million ($16m)Centre for Doctoral Training in Chip Design to train the next generation of chip designers in UK universities, and expand the government’s existing semiconductor skills program to fund 400 undergraduate bursaries next year (up from 300).. New UK chip investment fund. A new fund led by Silicon Valley investor Playground Global and backed by up to £150m ($200.9m) from the British Business Bank will invest in UK-based AI hardware companies.. The government said it is the single largest fund investment the British Business Bank has ever made.. Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is a partner in Playground Global. The firm will open its first office outside the US in the UK.. More in HPC & Quantum. 21 Apr 2026. 09 Feb 2026. More in UK & Ireland. 05 Jan 2026. 05 Mar 2026
