UK announces first AI growth zone
14 January 2025
by Jonathan Andrews
Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister (pictured), has outlined Culham in Oxfordshire to become the country’s first AI Growth Zone.
Announced as part of the government’s broader AI Opportunities Action Plan, the growth zones will aim to consolidate infrastructure development, fast-track investment, foster innovation, and create jobs in local communities.
Culham, on the outskirts of Oxford, was chosen because of its Science Centre, the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s headquarters, which has access to significant power to supply future data centres, and land.
“AI has the potential to change all of our lives but for too long, we have been curious and often cautious bystanders to the change unfolding around us,” said Peter Kyle, Science, Innovation, and Technology Secretary. “With this plan, we become agents of that change. We already have remarkable strengths we can tap into when it comes to AI – building our status as the cradle of computer science and intelligent machines and establishing ourselves as the third largest AI market in the world.”
The growth zones are one of 50 recommendations set out by the entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Matt Clifford, in his AI Opportunities Action Plan.
In the document he highlighted how AI growth zones could introduce a streamlined planning approvals process and accelerate the provisioning of clean power.
“This is a major opportunity to crowd in private capital to boost our domestic compute portfolio and to build strategic partnerships with AI developers to work on shared AI and AI-enabled priorities,” he said. “Government can also use [AI Growth Zones] to drive local rejuvenation, channelling investment into areas with existing energy capacity such as post-industrial towns and coastal Scotland.”
The IMF estimates that the full adoption of AI could increase productivity by up to 1.5 percentage points annually. If achieved, these productivity gains could contribute an average of £47 billion to the UK economy each year over a decade.
Clifford added that AI offers opportunities “we can’t let slip through our fingers. These steps put us on the strongest possible footing to ensure AI delivers in all corners of the country, from building skills and talent to revolutionising our infrastructure and compute power.”
Image: Fred Duval | Dreamstime.com
