Healthcare treatments, clean energy technologies and advanced breakthroughs that could transform lives across the UK are within reach, as the UK Government backs plans for a new AI collaboration with Europe.

Public research organisations can now apply to host the UK’s AI Factory Antenna – a facility that, if aproved, would link British resesarch expertise to its advances supercomputers across Europe.

Access to cutting-edge compute power – the high-performance processing capability needed to handle vast data and complex models – is the engine of progress in AI.

Greater collaboration in this field could help address global challenges, support the development of advanced AI systems used in healthcare and energy, and drive economic growth.

The announcement follows the new UK-EU agreement which aims to boost British jobs, help businesses, as well as the public.

“Supercomputers are the turbo-chargers of discovery,” minister for AI, Feryal Clark, said.

“By strengthening our partnership with Europe, we’re giving British innovators the compute power to solve climate and health challenges, grow the economy, and deliver our Plan for Change.

“This is about more than faster processing – it’s about putting the UK at the forefront of global AI.

“With access to some of Europe’s most advanced systems, our researchers and startups will be equipped to lead on cutting-edge breakthroughs and strengthen Britain’s role as a trusted partner in international AI development.”

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This expression of interest, open to individual public research organisations or consortia, will identify the UK’s government-backed bid to apply to EuroHPC’s call – with up to €5 million available.

If successful, the chosen organisation will become the UK’s AI Factory Antenna, acting as the gateway to top European supercomputers through a partnership with an AI Factory on the continent – a site combining EuroHPC compute with access to data, training and software support.

This will enable UK scientists, startups and public institutions to build larger, more complex AI models – shortening development cycles, accelerating innovation, and creating high-skilled jobs across the country.

The UK continues to invest in compute infrastructure, with £44bn invested in data centres since July last year.

The government is set to confirm the next sites for its AI Growth Zones this summer.

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