Chairs Brief: Issue 04

Over the past few issues, I’ve been setting out how the AI Growth Alliance will help our region organise itself more effectively around AI.

The next step is making that real.

This week, I’m focusing on the Infrastructure & Investment Working Group, and the role it will play in ensuring that our ambition for AI growth is backed by the right foundations, from compute and connectivity, through to funding and real-world deployment.

If ecosystem coordination is about connecting people and organisations, infrastructure and investment are about enabling them to deliver.

AI cannot scale without the right foundations in place. That includes access to compute, data, and connectivity, but also the financial investment needed to turn ideas into deployable solutions.

This is a consistent theme that came through strongly in our workshop discussions. Alongside skills and coordination, lack of infrastructure and access to investment were seen as key barriers to adoption across sectors.

The purpose of this working group is to address that challenge directly. Helping the region move from isolated capability to a position where it can support sustained, large-scale AI growth.

It’s also worth briefly revisiting why this work matters now.

The AI Growth Alliance was formed in part because, while we explored participation in the UK Government’s AI Growth Zone programme, the region was not yet in a position to meet the infrastructure requirements, particularly around large-scale power availability.

Rather than wait, we took a different approach.

If we are not yet able to support that level of centralised infrastructure, then we need to build a model that allows the region to grow anyway; developing capability, attracting investment, and demonstrating readiness over time.

That is exactly the role this working group is here to support.

The South Central region already has many of the ingredients needed to succeed:

The challenge is not starting from scratch, it is connecting these assets into something investable and scalable.

The AI Growth Alliance exists to help do exactly that: to act as a coordinating mechanism that brings together infrastructure, skills, and innovation into a coherent regional proposition.

One of the ideas emerging from early discussions is the concept of a distributed infrastructure model.

Rather than relying on a single major site or investment, the region can develop a network of connected capabilities:

This reflects the reality of our region: strong assets already exist, but they are spread across different organisations and locations.

The first task for this working group is therefore practical.

We need to build a clear picture of what we already have. Mapping existing infrastructure across the region, from compute and data capabilities through to physical sites and innovation facilities, and then identifying where the real gaps are.

Alongside this, we also need to understand the funding landscape.

Only by bringing these two views together, what we have, and how it can be funded and scaled, can we create a credible and investable plan for AI infrastructure in the region.

This approach also ensures that, even if we are not part of the first wave of national investment programmes, we are still building the capability, evidence, and coordination needed to attract future funding and support.

Infrastructure and investment can feel abstract, but they are what determine whether ideas actually happen.

Without them:

With them:

Ultimately, this is about ensuring that AI growth in the South is not theoretical, but practical and deliverable.

In the next newsletter, I’ll introduce the AI Ethics & Inclusion Working Group.

If infrastructure and investment determine what we can build, ethics and inclusion determine whether people will trust it and benefit from it.

Getting this right is critical. Without public confidence and fair access, AI adoption will stall, regardless of how strong our technical or investment position is.

If you are involved in infrastructure, investment, or AI deployment, this working group would benefit greatly from your input.

We are particularly interested in connecting with:

If you are responsible for infrastructure or investment capability in the region, we would really value hearing from you. A key part of this work is ensuring that existing assets are visible, connected, and aligned to support regional growth.

I look forward to working with all of you.

David Patterson

Chair, AI Growth Alliance

This week's Newsletter was written by David Patterson using a structure suggested by Claude and edited using Grammarly. All images created using Canva and this newsletter is produced and managed using beehiiv