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The UK will invest in a major expansion of government-owned AI computing capacity over five years including the construction of a new supercomputer as it seeks to build a globally competitive artificial intelligence sector, the ministers will be announced on Monday.

The move is in response to a newly published report by AI opportunities for the UK economy, commissioned by the government and drafted by British venture capitalists Matt Clifford.

The supercomputer will join two other advanced machines in the UK including Isambard-AI at the University of Bristol, which has around 5,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), special chips for creating AI software, and Dawn at the University of Cambridge.

Clifford’s report advocates achieving the equivalent of 100,000 GPUs in government-owned capacity by 2030.

The new capacity, which will represent a 20-fold increase in the UK’s sovereign computing power, will be separated from privately owned AI data centers and will be deployed by the government specifically for of AI applications in academia and public service.

It is not clear how much the project will cost, although it will come out of the research and development budget of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The announcement comes as Clifford is appointed as a part-time adviser to ministers of AI, which is helping implement its report’s recommendations, according to two people briefed on the plan. Downing Street declined to comment on the proposals.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Our plan will make Britain a world leader (in AI). It will give the industry the foundation it needs. . . That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in the pockets of the people, and changed the public service. That is the change that the government has given.”

Starmer became even more excited about the value of AI as an engine of economic growth and public sector reform after a private dinner with former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and DeepMind chief Sir Demis Hassabis last night. still the UK’s global investment summit in October, according to people briefed on the matter.

The Clifford report, known as the “AI Opportunities Action Plan”, was submitted to the government in September, but its publication has been plagued by delays. Several cabinet ministers met to discuss its contents in December, according to people briefed on the discussions.

It sets out 50 recommendations to create a thriving national AI industry by improving the conditions for building, measuring and adopting novel technology.

Among the government’s accepted recommendations are: the creation of AI “growth zones”, areas in the UK with rapid access to planning approval to build AI infrastructure; and an AI Energy Council, to advise on requirements around energy resources for AI, including nuclear energy.

Tech experts, including Clifford, argue that sovereign computing capacity is essential to ensure that British AI companies and researchers become less dependent on AI businesses in other countries.

They argue that the capacity to build new AI technology and related companies around the world, and that access to reliable computing power at a reasonable cost is essential because computing infrastructure has become a geopolitical battleground.

Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle was criticized in August for scrapping funding for an £800mn Exascale supercomputer program at Edinburgh university, a machine capable of complex scientific calculations such as physics simulations, in a move that took the technological and academic sector by surprise. guard.

Kyle insisted he “didn’t cut anything”, because the £800 million promised by the previous government was not budgeted for.

Without any significant new sovereign computing programs, the UK’s most powerful computer has been overtaken by rivals, meaning the country no longer has a ranking machine in global top 50.

Additional reporting by George Hammond in San Francisco