Aria announces submissions are open for new Scaling Compute – AI at 1/1000th the cost program

Backed by £42M, this programme will look to redefine the current compute paradigm.

Today, the Advanced Research + Innovation Agency (ARIA) launched their first programme, ‘Scaling Compute: AI at 1/1000th the cost’, led by Programme Director Suraj Bramhavar.

ARIA is an R&D funding agency built to unlock scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone. Created by an Act of Parliament, and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, ARIA was created to fund projects across the full spectrum of R&D disciplines, approaches, and institutions.

This first programme is part of the £42 million ARIA will direct over four years to R&D projects that line up with the objectives of this programme, funding researchers and engineers in a range of disciplines, sectors and institutions — from universities, to startups, SMEs, large corporate and public labs.

The ‘Scaling Compute: AI at 1/1000th the cost’ programme aims to radically reduce the cost of AI hardware, increasing and opening up new avenues to scale the AI industry — which is already worth more than £16.9bn in the UK.

For the first time in history, increased performance requires increasing costs and this coincides with an explosion of demand for more compute power driven by AI.

The current mechanisms for training AI systems utilise a narrow set of algorithms and hardware building blocks, which require significant capital to develop and manufacture. The combination of this significance and scarcity has far-reaching economic, geopolitical and societal implications.

This programme will challenge the key pillars of the UK’s computing paradigm and the underlying building blocks currently used to train AI systems, potentially revolutionising the future of compute

What does this mean for industry?

ARIA envision an opportunity to draw inspiration from natural processing systems which innately process complex information more efficiently than today's largest AI systems.

Their goal is to open up new vectors of progress in the field of computing by reducing the cost of AI hardware. In doing so, they wish to open up new opportunities to reap the social + economic benefits of AI, from accelerating scientific research to improving the efficiency of our public services.

How can industry get involved?

ARIA has announced they are now looking for R&D Creators, individuals and teams that they will fund and support, to pursue this goal. At this point, the programme consists of four technical areas (TAs) across two different solicitations.

The first solicitation, live now, consists of TA1 Bold Solutions, TA2 Bold Ideas and TA3 System-level Software Simulation.

The second solicitation will launch 3 June 2024 and will consist of TA4 Testing and Evaluation.

ARIA are currently accepting concept submissions, you can submit here by COP 27 March 2024.

Conclusion

By setting up this new program, ARIA hopes to open up fresh opportunities to reap the economic + social benefits of AI, from accelerating scientific research to improving the efficiency of our public services.

You can download the full funding call and submit your application for funding on ARIA’s website here.

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