AMD commits £2bn to UK AI infrastructure
Author: Joe Peck
AMD, an American multinational semiconductor company, has announced plans to invest up to £2 billion in the UK over the next five years to support computing infrastructure, AI research, and technology development.
The investment, announced during London Tech Week, includes collaborations with government, academia, and industry aimed at expanding access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources and supporting the UK’s AI ambitions.
AMD says the initiative aligns with the Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan and AI Hardware Strategy, which seek to strengthen the country’s AI infrastructure, skills base, and adoption of AI technologies.
Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD, explains, “The United Kingdom has the talent, research excellence, and ambition to help lead the next era of AI.
“AMD is proud to deepen our commitment to the UK and work with partners across government, academia, and industry to expand access to the compute infrastructure needed to advance sovereign AI, accelerate discovery, and drive long-term economic growth.”
The announcement was welcomed by government ministers, who highlighted the potential impact on AI research, skills development, and economic growth.
Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, says, “This investment is a major vote of confidence in Britain’s place as a global AI superpower. We’ve got the talent, the world-class universities, and the ambition to lead, and partnerships like this help turn that potential into real progress.
“It will drive more cutting-edge research here in the UK, open up opportunities for people to build the skills they need for the jobs of the future, and speed up breakthroughs that can improve people’s lives and grow our economy.”
New partnerships to support AI research
As part of the investment programme, AMD has announced a collaboration with Imperial College London focused on computational science and research areas that require large-scale computing resources, including healthcare and climate modelling.
The organisations also plan to explore ways to optimise AI models, scientific workflows, and data-intensive applications using AMD hardware and its ROCm software platform.
AMD is also working with Oriole Networks as part of the UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) Scaling Inference Lab initiative. The project will combine Oriole’s photonic networking technology with AMD GPUs and processors to investigate new approaches for scaling AI inference workloads while improving performance and energy efficiency.
According to AMD, the initiative could contribute to the development of what is expected to be the world’s first large-scale AI system built on a pure photonic network.
Expanding UK AI supercomputing capacity
AMD and Dell Technologies are also supporting the University of Cambridge’s growing AI infrastructure programme, including the Zenith AI supercomputer and the Sunrise fusion AI system being developed with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Zenith is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and UK Research and Innovation, while Sunrise is funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and will support fusion energy research.
The systems will be used across a range of ‘AI-for-science’ applications, including healthcare research, climate modelling, materials science, engineering simulation, fusion research, and AI model development.
Liz Kendall, Technology Secretary, says, “This investment reflects the strength of Britain’s talent, research, and ambition in AI, but also the infrastructure we are putting in place to match it.
“With world-class chip designers, leading universities, and partners such as AMD choosing to invest here, we are building the compute capability needed to power innovation, drive growth, create jobs, and ensure the most advanced AI technologies are developed in the UK.”
AMD says it will continue working with partners across government, academia, and industry to expand computing capacity and support future scientific and technological research in the UK.
For more from AMD, click here.
