The government is seeking a public research organisation to become the UK's AI Factory Antenna, fuelling AI innovation. The successful host will gain up to €5 million in funding to link British research with European super computing capacity.
This comes after the UK joined the European high performance computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) earlier this May, which pools the digital resources of 35 European countries. This provides free access to EuroHPC's supercomputers.
An AI factory is a computer infrastructure which encompasses the whole AI life cycle from data collection to developing algorithms, software infrastructure and experimental deployment. It takes the data and transforms it into valuable insights.
Enabling Breakthroughs
By leveraging AI in this fashion, the government is planning to advance healthcare treatments, improve clean energy technology and drive economic growth.
Minister for AI, Feryal Clark, said this is "about putting the UK at the forefront of global AI.
The factory development builds on further AI infrastructure which the government is implementing to unlock investment and expand skilled work opportunities. In summer, they will announce the next AI Growth Zone site, designed to house AI infrastructure.
Later this year the government will unveil a ten year roadmap on compute capacity, the Compute Strategy, to delineate their future direction.
European Collaboration
The move to create a Factory Antennae to connect with European computing power is part of a wider effort to expand collaboration with the EuroHPC JU, in line with increasing ties more broadly under the UK-EU agreement made earlier this May.
The successful applicant with be provided with £2.5 million from the UK government, which will be matched by the EU's research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe.
Clark commented that "by strengthening our partnership with Europe, we’re giving British innovators the compute power to solve climate and health challenges, grow the economy, and deliver our Plan for Change."
The UK's AI Opportunities Action Plan lays out commitments to further international collaboration, aiming to accelerate the use of AI to boost economic growth.
The expression of interest form to become the AI Factory Antennae is open now and closes Wednesday 11th June.