Compute, or computational power, has emerged as a fundamental
currency of AI technologies, shaping not only the technical
capabilities of AI systems and who is able to build them, but also
the competitive dynamics and strategic landscape of the AI sector.
As AI models grow increasingly sophisticated, access to and
control of large-scale compute resources have become critical
determinants of research progress, commercial success and
ultimately who can participate in AI development.
This report focuses on ‘public compute’, which we define loosely
as initiatives which use government funds to provide particular
groups with access to compute resources. This can take a variety
of forms, from the provision of hardware (for example, graphics
processing units or GPUs) or vouchers for accessing private cloud
services, to direct access to public supercomputing projects
operated by government or state-funded entities.
The announcement of the multibillion-dollar Stargate Project for
data centre investment in the US, the publication of the AI
Opportunities Action Plan in the UK, and live debate over the
effect of the DeepSeek R1 model on future compute demand all speak
to the urgency of better understanding the impact of compute
availability. With increasing calls for ‘public’ alternatives to
corporate infrastructure at all levels of the ‘AI stack’, compute
– as a central input for modern AI development – is necessarily
part of this picture. At the centre of this debate is how we can
evaluate the extent to which different approaches result in
broader public benefit, a key concern of this month’s AI Action
Summit in Paris.
This report summarises the findings of a research project carried
out by the Ada Lovelace Institute (Ada), with the support of the
Mozilla Foundation. Based on interviews with policymakers and
experts across multiple jurisdictions, we map existing public
compute initiatives and provide recommendations for policymakers
looking to scope and implement such policies.
continua qua
https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/report/computing-commons/