Edinburgh has been chosen as home to a new £18 million national academy for advanced chip design, as part of a package of AI investment confirmed in today’s Autumn Budget.
John Healey confirmed the funding as part of his first Budget as Chancellor, with the UK Advanced Chip Design Academy to be run by the University of Edinburgh under Professor Themis Prodromakis, Regius Chair of Engineering.
The academy will operate from the university’s Centre for Electronics Frontiers and the Scottish Microelectronics Centre. It will give researchers across the UK access to commercial chip-design tools and training so they can prototype and test designs in the UK, with the aim of linking British research more directly to semiconductor manufacturing and AI hardware.
Prof Prodromakis said the academy would help researchers turn new designs into physical silicon while building sovereign skills for the UK tech economy.
He said: “The establishment of the UK Advanced Chip Design Academy is a transformative investment in our national technology capabilities. Advanced semiconductors underpin the future of AI, quantum computing, and next-generation communications.
“By bringing together world-class academic expertise, cutting-edge tools, and industry-standard training pathways right here in Edinburgh, the Academy will empower researchers across the UK to translate innovative chip designs into physical silicon – nurturing the high-value sovereign talent needed to drive the UK’s tech economy forward.”
The academy is the main Scottish element of a wider package that HM Treasury trailed on 24 October. Healey has framed the package as a “distinctively British” approach to AI that protects workers and the national interest. It includes £10 million a year to study how AI will reshape jobs and industry.
Healey said: “AI will transform daily life: every firm, community, hospital, school, and every aspect of our economy can benefit. I understand and share the concerns of working people, so I am setting out a distinctively British approach to AI – one that doesn’t leave workers behind and defends our national interest, while ensuring the benefits of AI-enabled growth are felt right across the country.”
Around two-thirds of the AI package goes on defending the UK against the risks the technology brings, from cyberattacks and engineered pathogens to the safety of AI systems themselves.
The largest single commitment is a £165m National AI Biosecurity Initiative. It includes £100m for a new AI Biosecurity Lab, which will use AI to detect and monitor biological threats, and £65m for bio-surveillance and medical countermeasures against priority pathogens. OpenAI and Anthropic will back the lab with up to £200m in model credits, and Google DeepMind and London-based Basecamp Research are partners.
The AI Security Institute, which tests frontier AI models for risks, receives an extra £120m. On cyber defence, a £60m National Cyber Shield will use agentic AI to protect UK systems, and includes a £25m challenge fund for AI and cyber security innovators. A new £70m National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre will also use AI tools to find weaknesses across critical infrastructure and the wider economy.