Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the answer of 9 February 2026 to question 109652 on Artificial Intelligence, what progress she has made on scaling onshore compute.

Compute is a critical enabler for AI development and scientific research. This Government is committed to scaling this essential infrastructure to accelerate innovation, drive economic growth and better support our public services.

We are investing up to £2 billion in public compute through to 2030. This will deliver a new national supercomputer in Edinburgh and expand our AI Research Resource twentyfold by 2030 providing free access to compute for researchers, SMEs and the public sector.

The UK has also established five AI Growth Zones, including the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone, announced this January. We will continue to work with these zones to secure them as the UK's AI powerhouses, as well as identifying new sites around the UK with the potential to become AI Growth Zones.