How Edinburgh is poised to deliver the UK’s AI for Science strategy
This article was published in The Scotsman newspaper in January 2026.
In November 2025, the UK Government launched its AI for Science Strategy: a major commitment to using artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery and maintain the UK’s global leadership. Backed by £137 million through the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the strategy sets out how the UK will build the next generation of AI-driven scientific capability.
Earlier this year, Edinburgh Innovations participated in the University of Edinburgh’s AI Showcase in London, demonstrating the University’s strengths in AI, data and digital technologies. Many of the themes that emerged now appear at the heart of the government’s strategy.
Pillar 1 - Data: Creating high-quality, AI-ready datasets
The first pillar establishes an AI-first data stance for UK science, including generating new, high-quality, AI-ready datasets and modernising national research data policy. This emphasis on high-value scientific data is an area where Edinburgh is already leading.
The Edinburgh International Data Facility provides one of Europe’s most advanced environments for secure, large-scale datasets. The Usher Institute, and services such as Data Loch, support health data research at national scale, enabling secure access to anonymised patient data through Scotland’s National Safe Haven Network and Trusted Research Environments.
And the Smart Data Foundry creates trusted pathways to financial and other sensitive datasets for AI research, enabling, for example, the Economic Wellbeing Explorer – uncovering hidden poverty in partnership with local councils.
Pillar 2 - Compute: Providing the power for AI-driven science
The second pillar recognises that compute capacity is the most critical enabler of AI research.
EPCC at the University of Edinburgh hosts the current national supercomputer (ARCHER2) and has been named at the UK’s first National Supercomputing Centre with £175m of government investment.
The Edinburgh Genome Foundry is an early example of the automated and AI-enabled lab infrastructure the strategy points toward.
And where the strategy calls for sovereign, scalable and sustainable AI compute, Edinburgh is already delivering it. The Centre for Electronic Frontiers brings together energy-efficient nanoelectronics expertise, while the Causality in Healthcare AI hub, also involving Isambard AI in Bristol and Imperial College London, is building fully explainable causal AI platforms to address healthcare challenges. In the Edinburgh Geobattery project, scientists and industry partners are exploring using waste mine water to cool data centres and heat homes.
Pillar 3 - People & Culture: Training AI-native scientists and interdisciplinary teams
The third pillar emphasises the need for interdisciplinary teams that combine AI with domain expertise. It also captures the importance of embedding responsible, trustworthy approaches to AI-enabled science.
The University of Edinburgh ranks 1st in UK for AI research and 2nd in Europe for AI, Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision (CS Rankings 2024), and has the largest computer science department in the UK.
Edinburgh leads three UKRI AI Centres for Doctoral Training - the only university to be awarded more than one – in Responsible and Trustworthy in-the-world NLP, Dependable and Deployable AI for Robotics, and Biomedical AI Research.
We host leading centres for responsible and ethical AI, including the Centre for Technomoral Futures, BRAID, and the Generative AI Lab (GAIL).
And, through the Bayes Centre, we run translational programmes such as the AI Accelerator and the Venture Builder Incubator, which chime with the strategy’s goals of upskilling in AI and creating more routes to commercialisation.
Perhaps most importantly, the University supports all five scientific priority domains named in the strategy - medical research, engineering biology, materials science, quantum technologies and fusion-adjacent modelling.
The strategy imagines a future where AI accelerates discovery in every discipline - from drug development to advanced materials to climate modelling - and the University of Edinburgh will be central to realising this vision.
Liz Wainwright is Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives at Edinburgh Innovations
