Conclusion 9

We asked what the Department is doing to bring more private sector investment into supercomputing and challenged it on whether high British energy costs are holding back innovative companies. It pointed to its creation of the AI growth zones programme to facilitate the building of larger private sector AI data centres. It told us that companies raise 9 IRI007 10 IRI0006, IRI0007, IRI0015, IRI0022, IRI0025 11 Q 25, Q 5 12 Q 5 13 Q 55 14 Q 24 15 Q 5 16 Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, UK AI Hardware Plan, June 2026 17 Q 29 18 Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Compute, Strategic Assets & Procurement | UK Sovereign AI, accessed 24 June 2026 9 the issue of high and escalating energy costs with it a lot, so it has arranged for data centres in those of its AI growth zones with excess renewable energy to, in future, receive discounts on their energy costs.19