News Summary

The UK government has announced a $130 million investment to boost the AI sector by purchasing emerging chip technology from British companies. Science Secretary Liz Kendall stated that the government will offer guaranteed payments to startups producing AI hardware that can benefit sectors such as life sciences and financial services. This initiative, modeled after the government’s COVID vaccine procurement strategy, aims to support ‘cutting-edge chip companies’ by committing to buy AI inference chips meeting certain performance standards. Despite being smaller than US and Chinese investments, this move is seen as a demonstration of government leadership in the AI field, as the UK holds the third-largest AI market globally, valued at over £72 billion ($94 billion).