Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to paragraph 3.92 of the Spring Budget Report 2023, HC1183, published in March 2023, from which Department's budget will the £900 million allocated for the exascale supercomputer come from; and if he will publish a timeframe for this expenditure.

The Government will invest, subject to business case approval, in the region of £900 million to build an exascale supercomputer and to establish a new AI Research Resource, with initial investments starting this year. This will provide significant compute capacity to our AI community and provide scientists with access to cutting-edge computing power.

Further information on this expenditure and its timeframe will be provided in due course once the Government’s usual business case processes for determining new programme spend conclude.