UK Spring Budget: Chancellor plans £1M annual AI prize, quantum investments, and a new £900M ‘exascale’ computer
By Editor - Wed Mar 15, 8:09 am
The U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt’s spring budget — delivered on the same day that teachers, transportation workers, civil servants and others were on strike across the country — sought to strike a note of its own: optimism in the face of many signals to the contrary. With the U.K. narrowly predicted to avoid a recession this year and next, Hunt also used the moment to announce a string of funding injections into the country’s technology sector, including a new quantum computing hub; an annual £1 million prize called the “Manchester Prize” for AI research; and £3 billion in investments in “high growth” business in the next 10 years. The announcements are coming in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank crisis — the company’s U.K. subsidiary was snapped up by incumbent HSBC earlier this week as one part of that — and it underscores the potential role government plays to complement and bolster what’s playing out in the private sector. Whether the U.K.
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