The government has unveiled its new ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ – a ten-syllable, fifty-point proposal to grow the UK’s AI industry. Among the only memorable points of the fifty unveiled last month was the creation of ‘AI growth zones’, clusters of AI expertise dotted around the country. The only growth zone named in the plan was Culham, a sleepy village in Oxfordshire. I went to pay it a visit.
Culham and its nearby sister village Harwell were among the top sites in the world for scientific research in the mid-20th century and were run by what’s now called the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which conducts nuclear experiments. Rumour has it, the area was of such strategic significance the government redirected production at the steelworks responsible for repairing bomb-damaged Westminster to support the boffins in Oxfordshire.
The government has had to pin its hopes for AI growth on planning decisions made half a century ago
The old visitors’ book I was shown
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