Current status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 13 July 2026
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support the augmentation of the UK Government's AI Hardware Plan.
Scotland is uniquely positioned to support delivery of the AI Hardware Plan, with globally competitive strengths in photonics, semiconductors, novel architectures, low-power and edge AI systems. These are areas specifically identified in the Scottish government’s AI Strategy (2026).
Scotland is home to a £4.4bn critical technologies supercluster, with over 160 companies, 11,500 jobs and >80% export revenue. The Scottish Government is directly supporting the industry ambition to grow to £10bn and 17,500 jobs by 2035.
The Scottish Government provides long-term core funding to Technology Scotland as the Cluster Management Organisation and industry body for these sectors, and to the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, arguably the UK’s strongest translational assets in this field. Other assets include Glasgow’s James Watt Nanofabrication Centre, the National Advanced Semiconductor Packaging and Integration Centre, and Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre.
The Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport has written to the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology to urge the UK government to ensure Scotland’s strengths are recognised and that opportunities are not solely flowing to elsewhere in the UK.