Scrapping of supercomputer could have a significant impact on Scotland’s economy, experts warn

The Labour government’s decision to scrap the exascale supercomputer being developed at Edinburgh University, will have “without a doubt” an “impact on the economic opportunities for Scotland”, experts claim.

Speaking at Holyrood’s Public Sector, Cloud Infrastructure & AI conference, David Ferguson, head of data at ScotlandIS, said the cut would have a “knock-on effect right across the technology sector”, which holds a value of more than £16.6bn north of the border.

He said: “It will have a knock-on effect right across the technology sector because the supercomputer was not just about providing one service, it was about access to research programs and high-quality supercomputing. So it's really important that we look to try and champion and refocus the government's decision to move that.”

Danny Quinn, managing director at DataVita, which was involved in a project to develop a UK wide supercomputer for the NHS, agreed with Ferguson and blamed the £1.3bn computing cut on “political shenanigans”. He said: “It [the cash promise] was made under a Tory government. So of course, when they [Labour] came, it had to get cancelled.”

However, Quinn confirmed an initiative was under review to bring back a reimagined version of some projects under the upcoming UK budget.

He added:  “We're hoping it comes back within a Labour manifesto. I think they will take the cover off it and put a new one on it and say it is someone else’s idea.

"So, we are hopeful that this will be resurrected. Time will tell, over the next couple of weeks but hopefully in the UK budget, we should see something announced on it.”

Both experts were also keen to highlight a lack of investment in data infrastructure could bring sovereignty issues and warned it could risk “trillion-dollar technology companies" having "state-level power and control" over Scotland.

Quinn explained: “Data sovereignty is more than where the data sets are. The foundation of our economic wealth sits within that data, and allowing others to hold and secure that data is very dangerous from a control point of view. Secondly, data acts like a waterfall effect. Wherever you see data, you see the creation of jobs and the creation of wealth. There's pop-up industries that go around silos of data."

“We think having the vast amounts of data that Scotland holds stay in Scotland is important, particularly when you look at the UK as a whole," he continued, "so it was one of the reasons why we've actually kind of bucked the trend around the national cloud. A lot of people were saying to us, what the hell are you doing getting more into cloud services when you're competing against these ginormous organisations? But we think there is a need to make sure that you have your data controlled within companies that are native to your work.”

Dr Raul Villamarin Rodiguez, vice president at Woxen University, then went on to point out the world is too fixed on over-regulating the tech sector out of fear.

He said: “There is some sort of obsession globally with regulation. I'm not very sure why. I never really quite understood it. But if you put so many boundaries around it [technology], then you are going to curtail substantial innovation.

"The goal is that innovation and regulation should go parallel, but I disagree from an academic perspective. Primarily because I've seen countries like China, India and Singapore not having much regulation around and having substantial development in these areas, particularly in supercomputers, quantum and AI."

He continued: "We have to find a balance. Some individuals and governments have compared this to regulating the aviation sector. But we have to remember that we regulated aviation by crashing aircrafts. And in AI, quantum and supercomputers, nothing has really happened yet. We predict some fear and misbehaviour in individuals, but we don't know yet. So, what we are withdrawing from, what we are overregulating on, I have not got the sense of it yet why.

"For example, the EU and the act that America is coming up with for overregulating have overarching teeth to bite everyone across the globe who uses those tools or privacy regulations. So, these seem more of a capital-oriented scheme than having a regulation for good.

“I think the regulation is a mistake.”