Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to cut funding for an Edinburgh University supercomputer shows that “Labour don’t seem to get how AI works,” a Scottish Government minister has said.

Angus Robertson told The Herald that the “hugely consequential decision” would ultimately undermine the economy.

But the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology said that despite promises of money from the last Tory government, the programme had been unfunded, meaning they had little choice but to pull the plug on the £800m Exascale project.

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The University had already spent £31m on a new wing of its advanced computing facility purpose-built to house the supercomputer.

The aim of the Exascale project is to build a computer that can perform one billion calculations each second.

Once operational, it would be able to provide “high-performance computing capability” for key research and industry projects across the UK.

But a senior government figure told media the Edinburgh machine made “little strategic sense.”

The unnamed source told the Financial Times that the project was too focused on “traditional computing projects such as scientific simulations” rather than artificial intelligence.

However, a supercomputer can be used for both AI and simulation.

AI is a software technology and very similar to the scientific simulation applications the university has run on supercomputers for the past 40 years.

Generative AI, including Large Language Models like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, need to use supercomputing during their training step because of the amount of memory and computational time it takes to train them.

Simulation also allows companies to test new ideas in order to develop new products and optimise existing ones.

There are industry fears that a lack of large-scale computing resources provided for both AI and simulation will lead to a reduction in the UK’s international competitiveness and the loss of research talent overseas.

Currently, there are only two known fully functioning exascale computers in the world, both in the US.

There is speculation China has one, though that has not been confirmed.

Mr Robertson said: “Labour don’t seem to get how AI works. The output data and cutting edge research that this computer would provide are central to AI development.

“Labour has made a hugely consequential decision early on that misunderstands and undermines the priorities of Scotland’s world-leading data, AI, and tech sector."

The Cabinet Secretary added: “It’s clear Labour’s desperation to cut government funding is undermining the economy.”

A spokesperson for the UK Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology replied: “We are absolutely committed to building technology infrastructure that delivers growth and opportunity for people across the UK.

“The Government is taking difficult and necessary spending decisions across all departments in the face of billions of pounds of unfunded commitments. This is essential to restore economic stability and deliver our national mission for growth.

“We have launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan which will identify how we can bolster our compute infrastructure to better suit our needs and consider how AI and other emerging technologies can best support our new Industrial Strategy.”

Edinburgh University said they were keen to work with the government on this “vital issue.”

A spokesperson said: “The University of Edinburgh has led the way in supercomputing within the UK for decades, and is ready to work with the government to support the next phase of this technology in the UK, in order to unlock its benefits for industry, public services and society.

“Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, Principal of the University, has met with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Secretary of State for Scotland and we welcome the continued dialogue on this vital issue.”