The UK government has shelved £1.3bn ($1.66bn) in funding for tech and AI projects that had been announced by the previous administration.

Projects impacted include the exascale supercomputer that was set to be built at the University of Edinburgh and the AI Research Resource (AIRR).

Last year, the Conservative government committed £800m ($1.02bn) for the exascale system and £500m ($637.2m) in additional funding for the AIRR. However, the current Labour government, elected in July, has said that no new funding for the program was allocated in the previous government’s spending plans, and therefore the projects will not be taken forward.

The University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) already has a supercomputer, and in October 2023 it was announced the facility would host the UK’s first exascale computer, which had been slated to go live in 2025. The university has already spent £31 million ($38m) building a new wing at its EPCC purpose-built AFC. It’s unclear what the decision to pull the funding will mean for the future of the project.

Addressing MPs in the House of Commons on July 30, chancellor Rachel Reeves said the previous Conservative government had left a £22bn ($28.04bn) “black hole” in public finances and that she had asked government departments to find £3.1bn ($3.95bn) in “efficiency savings.”

Responding to a request for comment from DCD, a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology said: “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.”

The spokesperson added: “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.”

Last month, the UK government announced plans to invest £100 million ($129m) to fund five new quantum research hubs in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Oxford, and London.