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A supercomputer at Edinburgh university is set to receive £750mn as part of Wednesday’s spending review, reversing a contentious decision to suspend funding made in the early days of Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
The decision to fund the programme will come as a huge relief to academics and industry, who say the computing power will be needed to drive Britain’s nascent AI industry and run complex scientific simulations.
The £750mn will come alongside a further £1bn investment into the AI Research Resource, a separate cluster of computers for AI research by academics and industry, according to two people briefed on the plans.
Last July, shortly after taking power, Labour pulled about £800mn that had been pledged to Edinburgh university for the supercomputer, claiming the previous Conservative government had failed to properly allocate the money.
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