Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to spend £100m of public funds on semiconductor procurement to boost Britain’s AI sector and increase computing resource.
The government is reportedly in talks with US microchip giants Nvidia, AMD and Intel to procure chips for use in the development of AI technologies.
First reported by the Telegraph, the process will be led by UK Research and Innovation, which is said to be close to securing an order of 5,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia.
Nvidia, worth more than $1tn, develops GPUs that – among other things – power generative AI models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The latest version of ChatGPT is said to have been trained on 25,000 Nvidia chips, leading to concerns that the government’s order will be insufficient.
According to the Telegraph, civil servants are pushing for the government to allocate further funds for AI infrastructure projects.
A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said: “The additional money being delivered through UKRI will complement the separate £100m investment to establish the Foundation Model Taskforce.
“Announcements on the AI Research Resource will follow in due course. We are committed to supporting a thriving environment for compute in the UK which maintains our position as a global leader across science, innovation and technology.”
Nvidia declined to comment on the situation.
The announcement from the government has spurred questioning from ministers regarding the allocation of AI funding. Labour MP Darren Jones in a letter to the Foundation Model Taskforce asked for clarity on how it would spend its funding.
The funding boost is part of Sunak’s science and technology superpower ambition, with AI being highlighted as a key focus area for the UK.
Sunak has already approved £100m of funding for a generative AI taskforce, as well as a £1bn semiconductor strategy.
Despite these efforts, there remain complaints that existing support is insufficient, particularly when compared with international competition. The US and EU’s semiconductor funding allocations are significantly higher than the UK’s, currently at $50bn (£39bn) and €43bn (£37bn) respectively.
In November, the UK is set to hold a global summit on AI safety. However, question marks remain about the event, such as whether China will be invited.
Read more: China should be at UK’s AI summit, says Labour’s Darren Jones