UK Government and UK Research and Innovation join forces to launch multi-billion-pound compute roadmap

(Press-News.org) Quicker health diagnoses, smarter energy supplies, tackling climate change and improved public service delivery – just some huge potential benefits of the new compute roadmap, launched by DSIT and UKRI.

The roadmap heralds a significant increase in publicly accessible compute capacity. Investments include up to £2 billion to deliver a holistic and user-centred compute ecosystem with  £1 billion to expand the AI Research Resource 20-fold by 2030.

It also provides up to £750 million for UKRI to invest in a new national supercomputing service at Edinburgh.

UKRI is further supporting the roadmap with over £59 million of additional investments in world class skills and training, UK-wide capability and  access. Many measures will help grow knowledge exchange between business and research experts.

Within this UKRI package key investments include:

Five Digital Research Technical Professional (DRTP) Skills NetworkPlus awards to Universities of Warwick, Southampton and Edinburgh, University College London and Imperial College London (£9 million) to tackle critical technical skills gaps and support national connectivity of digital skills £6 million for Universities of Surrey and Durham to enhance technical professional skills to match those found across the globe. £1.6 million for University of Edinburgh to share best practice and knowledge exchange around the future of supercomputing. Compute, or high-performance computing power, is a critical foundation for many areas of modern research. It will power the AI revolution, especially training AI models to revolutionise both public and private sector business practices while driving economic growth across the UK.

With demand set to increase in the years ahead, investing in the UK's digital research infrastructure can significantly improve lives and livelihoods. It’ll enable the development of smarter devices, more accurate health diagnostics, improved prediction and mitigation of the effects of climate change, energy storage and generation solutions, and better data-driven decision-making.

These lead to healthier communities, more sustainable practices, and stronger economic growth.

Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology Peter Kyle said: 

“Britain has top of the class talent in AI and our plan will put a rocket under our brilliant researchers, scientists, and engineers – giving them the tools they need to make Britain the best place to do their work.

“This will mean we can harness the technology in Britain to transform our public services, drive growth, and unlock new opportunities for every community in the country.” 

Professor Charlotte Deane, Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and UKRI Digital Infrastructure Champion, said:

“This new roadmap contains many measures to take digital infrastructure to the next level across the UKRI, bringing many benefits to businesses, communities and families everywhere.

“By harnessing advanced computing power, there is the potential to drive progress in many areas of life, such as health, energy, transport and public services.

“Our vision is for researchers and innovators to be able to access and exploit the best digital infrastructure for the benefit of lives and livelihoods across the UK.”

Further information

UKRI is supporting the compute roadmap by confirming over £59 million of new investments into many areas of critical digital research infrastructure, including career development for digital research and technical professionals

Just over £6 million will help create two new national hubs hosted by University of Surrey and University of Durham. These will provide a robust training curriculum, career pathways, and a talent pipeline bridging data, software, and hardware development, as well as fostering engagement with large-scale UK and international initiatives.

To enhance large-scale computational science and broaden participation in computational practices, showcasing UK strengths internationally, a £1.6 million investment will support one Knowledge Exchange and Communications NetworkPlus (KEC NetworkPlus) to be hosted by the University of Edinburgh.  It will drive activities to unite diverse communities, represent UK advancements at national and international initiatives, and share best practice.

UKRI is also investing £9 million in five Digital Research Technical Professional (DRTP) Skills NetworkPlus awards - an investment that will build new cross-domain communities of diverse, inclusive and interdisciplinary DRTPs, facilitating conversations with researchers and innovators, and supporting the development of skills across domains and disciplines. These networks will bring together disciplines, sectors, and domains to tackle critical skills gaps – establishing clear career pathways and recognition for technical professionals in areas such as high-performance computing, data stewardship, and research software engineering.

The funding includes a further £2.2 million to support the continuation of the infrastructure for Digital Arts and Humanities (iDAH) for a further three years. Embracing work on compute, skills and research software, the iDAH programme includes a network of five interconnected data services, which are pioneering innovative approaches to curation and enhanced access to complex data and driving technological innovation in AI and associated technologies. These include the archaeology and museum data services, as well as Enact which works with complex practice and performance-based data.

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