Peter Kyle keynote: Whitehall’s new infrastructure is compute, not concrete

Yesterday, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP, used his keynote address at Nvidia’s GTC 2025 to unveil a sweeping vision for the UK’s role in the global AI economy - positioning the state as an “agile, active partner” in the race for compute infrastructure.

Held annually and opened by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, GTC is the world’s leading AI developer conference, bringing together technologists, researchers, and policymakers from around the globe.

As the company behind the GPUs that power the vast majority of large-scale AI training and inference, Nvidia sits at the heart of the global AI ecosystem - making GTC a bellwether for future trends in compute, infrastructure, and applied innovation.

Kyle announced the UK’s plans to establish a network of “AI Growth Zones” across former industrial sites, backed by planning reforms, grid connectivity, and investment incentives.

One of the proposed zones could host Europe’s largest data centre, with close to 2 gigawatts of capacity, and is set to break ground this year.

“In the age of compute, we cannot - must not - be afraid to contemplate a sweeping change of course,” Kyle said. “I want shovels in the ground this year.”

The remarks form part of the government’s broader AI Opportunities Action Plan, which sets out ambitions to grow the UK’s compute infrastructure twentyfold by 2030 and expand access to public compute resources for research and public sector innovation.

Kyle’s speech marks a shift in tone — emphasising a state-enabled, investment-led model of AI development. Rather than taking a purely regulatory or laissez-faire stance, the UK government is pledging strategic public-private collaboration, particularly to accelerate large-scale infrastructure.

“Instead of collieries and oil wells, it’s the mines and refineries where silicon is processed. Compute is the raw material of our time,” he said. “The state cannot afford to wait — and we will not.”

Since opening a call for AI Growth Zone proposals earlier this year, the government has received over 200 responses from local leaders, according to Kyle. He described this as evidence of “ambition and appetite” across the UK to harness AI for economic regeneration.

The zones are designed to repurpose disused industrial land - including redundant power supply infrastructure - for high-density data centre development. With fast-track planning permissions and embedded power connections, the initiative aims to reduce time-to-build and attract global investment.

For the UK public sector, Kyle made clear that AI is not just an economic lever, but a core tool of modern government. He cited the nationwide rollout of AI in stroke diagnosis as a model, noting that AI has cut treatment times from 140 minutes to 79 and tripled the chances of independent living.

The UK’s AI Research Resource, built using Nvidia technology and named “Isambard” after the Victorian engineer Brunel, is now online and supporting medical research such as protein mapping for heart disease.

Kyle announced a new market engagement process for private partnerships to support the expansion of public compute, and reiterated the UK’s ambition to become a global testbed for applied AI, with a government ready to act as “laboratory, investor and partner”.

Acknowledging concerns about AI’s energy demands, Kyle rejected claims that the sector’s power use undermines its promise. Instead, he called on innovators to challenge conventional infrastructure approaches and pursue breakthroughs in energy efficiency, cooling, and architecture.

He also stressed that Britain’s future in AI must be anchored in democratic values: “This is not just about investment. It’s about a partnership that is tailored to the needs of our era - rooted in freedom, fairness, and the rule of law.”

The AI Growth Zones initiative places local authorities at the heart of national infrastructure planning, and signals sustained political backing for regionally anchored, digitally enabled economic development.

The broader message: Compute is the new foundation of public service innovation. As Kyle put it, “Without compute, no economy can thrive. No country can protect its people. No government can retain the trust of its citizens.”