Quantum leaps
The government is ploughing a further £1.6bn into R&D funding – mostly through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (£1.1bn) in an attempt to secure the UK’s position as a world leader in new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear fusion, and quantum computing. Since 2016, the government has spent an additional £7bn on R&D – the largest increase in 40 years and part of the its long-term commitment to raise total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. Hopefully the private sector will pitch in too. Raising the Annual Investment Allowance to £1m might help to this end, although Hammond should have promised to keep it there for over a year.
Quantum technologies will get a further £235m to support the development and commercialisation, including up to £70m from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, and £35m to support a new national quantum computing centre. This is on top of the recent £80m extension of the Quantum Technology Hubs. The hope, as set out in the budget, is that “these technologies will transform capabilities in computing, sensing and communications, bringing promising new approaches to solving global problems such as disease and climate change.”
The UK Atomic Energy Agency will get an additional £20m in 2019-20 to accelerate its work on the development and commercialisation of fusion technologies. The prize of carbon-free fusion power is arguably worthy of a bit of a gamble of public funds....