UK to launch AI hardware plan

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall used a landmark speech at the Royal United Services Institute on Tuesday (28 April) to announce a UK AI hardware plan covering chips and semiconductors.

The plan forms part of a broader push to build what Kendall called AI sovereignty, anchored in Britain’s $1 trillion tech sector, world-leading universities, and the AI Security Institute, which Kendall positioned as a globally influential body shaping international approaches to AI safety.

Kendall framed the announcement as a response to a fractured world in which mastery of chips, computing power, and AI increasingly determines economic security, energy security, and defence security.

She argued that Britain must become indispensable in the parts of the AI stack where it has genuine strengths, rather than attempting to build everything alone or ceding ground to other powers.

The Cabinet Minister also committed to working more closely with international partners, particularly other middle power nations, on setting global standards for how AI is deployed.

Concerns about compute concentration

Kendall warned that just five companies now control 70% of global AI compute and rejected calls to pause AI development as a “double betrayal” of British talent and British interests.

The 70% figure cited by Kendall reflects a market that has consolidated rapidly around a handful of US chip designers and hyperscale cloud providers.

Nvidia alone holds roughly 80% of the AI accelerator market by revenue in 2026, having peaked near 87% in 2024, with the company’s data centre revenue reaching $194 billion in its 2026 financial year.

Hyperscalers including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have collectively committed over $650 billion to AI infrastructure spending in 2026, and TSMC manufactures around 92% of the world’s most advanced AI chips, including every Nvidia, AMD, Apple, and Amazon design.

For the UK, this concentration creates a strategic dependency that Kendall argued cannot be left unaddressed.

The hardware plan is intended to secure British capability across the full AI hardware stack, from frontier research and compute through to skills and infrastructure, in areas where domestic strengths can translate into real leverage rather than tokenistic investment.

Not pressing pause

Calls to pause frontier AI development have come from researchers, civil society groups, and some politicians, citing safety risks, but Kendall described any such retreat as a double betrayal of British founders and British interests.

She argued the real choice is not between a world with AI and one without, but between a Britain that shapes its own AI future and one left at its mercy.

The Technology Secretary pointed to a new generation of British founders and investors building what she called ambitious and responsible AI, and cited the AI Security Institute and the government’s Sovereign AI work as proof that the UK can move quickly without abandoning safety.

Kendall’s framing places the UK in an explicit middle ground between the United States, where frontier model development is concentrated, and jurisdictions pushing for stricter pre deployment controls.

By rejecting a pause while simultaneously announcing hardware investment, the Technology Secretary signalled that the government’s response to compute concentration will be to build British capacity rather than slow the pace of development globally.

What the hardware plan must address

The UK AI hardware plan, as outlined in the RUSI speech, will focus on chips and the semiconductor technologies that underpin the full AI hardware stack.

Details on funding, timelines, and specific industrial partners has not yet been published, but the plan sits alongside existing UK strengths in chip design IP, including Cambridge-based Arm, and university research clusters in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Imperial College London.

The challenge for the government will be translating these design and research strengths into manufacturing leverage in a sector where TSMC’s foundry dominance and Nvidia’s design lock-in have proved extraordinarily resilient.

Kendall’s emphasis on alliances suggests the plan will not attempt to replicate the full stack domestically.

Instead, the government appears to be targeting a keystone position, where British contributions in select areas become indispensable to allies, giving the UK leverage in international AI governance and supply chain decisions.

Whether that strategy succeeds will depend on the scale of investment ultimately committed and the willingness of partner nations to integrate UK capability into their own AI infrastructure plans.

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