Countries as well as technology companies do not want to be left behind in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Because artificial intelligence will probably be among the largest industries in the coming years. In this context, the UK, which does not want to be left behind in the competition, is investing heavily to build the next exascale supercomputer.The UK has announced plans to invest £900m ($1.1bn) in a new supercomputer to build its own GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) AI model. Temporarily named “BritGPT”, this computer will be one of the most powerful computing devices in the world, capable of over a billion calculations per second (exaflops). Currently the only supercomputer built at this scale is the “Frontier” located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA.
UK to become AI leader
The Guardian states that the UK aims to use the supercomputer to develop artificial intelligence technologies that can be used in various sectors from health to finance. When the investment is completed, the UK will be one of the leading countries in artificial intelligence technologies. According to reports, British officials are worried about being left behind in the artificial intelligence industry, which is currently dominated by the USA and China.
IT Group’s Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer Adrian Joseph, succumbing to China and dealing with cybersecurity, healthcare, etc. while expressing that there is a risk of falling behind in areas, he compared it to an arms race; “It’s a huge arms race that’s been going on for a while, but it’s clear that the heat has increased recently.” UK Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said: “I am dedicating around £900m in funding for a large-scale supercomputer today, as AI needs computing horsepower.” found in his statements.Recent developments in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other companies’ major language models (LLM) have fueled the race even more. The UK government is offering massive support packages to R&D and startups to support the growth of AI-related businesses in the country. With BritGPT, big data can be processed much faster and more accurately. This processing power will enable AI models to be trained more effectively.
A spokesperson for the British Treasury said: “This investment will allow researchers to better understand climate change, power the discovery of new medicines and maximize our AI potential.” The £900m investment includes £10m of annual funding for AI innovations. Additionally, each year for the next ten years, research groups will compete for the £1 million “Manchester Prize”, a reference to the Manchester Baby, the first computer built at the University of Manchester in 1948. The award was the most significant for that year. value is given to the invention of artificial intelligence.
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