UK’s big, risky AI bet

英国的大胆、风险性人工智能赌注

Today in Focus

2026-03-30

23 分钟
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Reporter Aisha Down explores the UK’s ‘phantom investments’ in AI, and the risk the government has taken in betting so heavily on the technology if it all goes bust. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, the Prime Minister wants to pump AI into the veins of the economy.

  • What does that really look like?

  • Okay, so phone, keys, wallet, supercomputer, here we come.

  • Good luck.

  • OK, we are off to Debden.

  • I'm off to this small Essex suburb because my colleague Aisha Down has given instructions for finding the future

  • of the UK's economy, a supercomputer.

  • So the supercomputer is north of an industrial park set next to a disused football field and a restaurant

  • surrounded by sort of a thick hedge.

  • It's meant to be one of the biggest in the world.

  • And it's meant to be ready by the end of the year.

  • One bus, a train and a tube ride later, I 've arrived at where this multi-billion pound

  • economic miracle is supposed to be.

  • I head to the high street to ask locals if they know where the supercomputer is or what it is.

  • Have you heard anything about it?

  • No, I'm sorry.

  • I don't know.

  • I barely know how to work a computer.

  • Yeah, I didn't even know it was a thing.