However the UK is in a “Goldilocks circumstance”, said Huang with largest store of AI brainpower on the planet at our universities, companies and research institutions and the third largest VC investment in AI enterprises in the world but without the infrastructure to develop and run AI programmes.
“This is the largest AI ecosystem in the world without its own infrastructure,” said Huang adding that, on the Continent, they are planning to build “umpteen” AI datacentres or ‘AI factories’ as he calls them.
“The thing that is quite extraordinary and is an incredible opportunity for the UK: AI is a technology, but is also an infrastructure because it affects so many industries simultaneously,” added Huang, “because this technology is so broad and so transformative to every single industry, it will be considered infrastructure just as electricity was.”
“You can’t do machine learning without machines,” said Huang, “the ability to build these AI supercomputers here in the UK will naturally attract more startups.”
