Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the regional economic impact of generative artificial intelligence, particularly outside London and the South East.

The Government recognises the transformative economic potential of generative AI in the UK. While London and the South-East currently generate around 86% of UK AI Revenue, other regions, such as Manchester, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, are emerging as key innovation hubs. This includes £750 million of investment recently announced for the building of a new AI supercomputer, hosted at the University of Edinburgh.

Additionally, as HMG’s AIRR+ compute network can be accessed remotely, researchers across the country are now able to make use of the UK’s world-class sovereign compute, in order to train new cutting-edge AI models.

The North and South-West have the highest levels of business AI adoption outside of the greater South-East, suggesting industry in UK is harnessing the benefits of AI technology into their business practices.