Government has announced a £23 million investment in telecoms research and development in order to strengthen connectivity across key industries such as AI, cloud computing and agriculture.
The funding is part of Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle’s plans to speed up the implementation of next generation telecoms technologies.
He is expected to confirm the funding during his speech at the techUK Tech Policy Conference today.
Kyle said, “The UK has deep pedigree and expertise when it comes to developing, commercialising and rolling out the most advanced telecoms tech.”
“Today, it is all the more important that we back our telecoms innovators to get their ideas out of the lab and into use, in every part of the country.”
The funding has been allocated across two key areas. The first £7 million will be used to support local projects that integrate 5G into businesses and public services and the remaining £15 million will go towards research to meet the increasing demand of data-intensive industries such as AI and cloud computing.
This investment is part of a broader effort to strengthen Britain’s digital infrastructure and to ensure that it can support emerging technologies.
Kyle added, “None of our ambitions for national renewal will be possible without a backbone of telecoms tech that can meet the needs of burgeoning new industries like AI and data centres, and turbocharge existing enterprises too”.
Much of the funding will be directed towards three future communications research hubs, which will focus on developing next generation tech. The University of Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Imperial College will lead various different projects.
The government have indicated that this initial round of funding is part of a larger strategy to build secure and resilient telecoms infrastructure.
Further announcements regarding additional investment in the UK’s future telecoms ecosystem are expected in the coming months.