The UK currently occupies an enviable position in the AI arms race. World-class research institutions produce leading AI talent, and a developed financial sector provides the capital and expertise needed to scale. The result is a slate of top-tier homegrown AI labs, as well as a series of US big tech firms choosing to set up their European arms in London.

The UK has laid the foundations, but now it needs to pave the way for future success. At the core of the country’s strategy must be developing a sovereign cloud infrastructure that pries British startups away from the vice-like grip of dominant hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.

This will take some bold decision-making from founders, who will need to choose less established players to provide their GPUs and cloud computing infrastructure. But one way to support them is by rolling out Special Compute Zones across the UK.

The barriers to entering the cloud computing market are high. There is a finite number of GPUs – and a seemingly infinite supply of AI labs clamoring for access to them. Whether you own them or lease them out, you need the capital to get them in the first place, and this sinks most would-be competitors to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft before you even start.

To stimulate the growth of UK sovereign cloud computing infrastructure then, will take some imagination. To relieve this crunch the UK needs to build more data centers – and this will need Special Compute Zones.

Currently, there is a myriad of factors that hold back data center construction in the UK. From planning to water supply, the list is endless – but right at the core of the issue is power. Simply put, the UK cannot supply these data centers with the requisite power they need to fuel the AI revolution.

There’s a solution though – to power the UK’s startups to dominance over the next decade, the future has to be nuclear. Only nuclear fuel sources can ensure that the demands for compute are met without placing insurmountable stresses on the environment.

Special Compute Zones will be vital in bringing nuclear power into the fold and stimulating the development of a UK sovereign cloud computing infrastructure. They’ll do this in three ways.

Firstly, designated Special Compute Zones could look to loosen planning restrictions around data centers and nuclear power. Currently, the UK lags far behind international competitors in terms of time to completion for nuclear power reactors. This spans across the planning and approval stages, right up to the physical construction and getting the reactors hooked up to the grid.

It’s notable that as the US big tech companies have come to the realization that staying ahead in the AI race requires nuclear power, they are not turning to the UK to facilitate this. Other countries like France, with a more developed nuclear infrastructure, are preferred, as well as plants closer to home such as with Microsoft’s intentions to reopen Three Mile Island.

The UK needs can’t afford to lag behind on this any longer. Designating Special Compute Zones to help expedite the planning and construction process will allow the UK to rapidly close this gap with its international competitors – ensuring that cloud computing providers based in the UK can have their energy requirements met.

Another way in which designating Special Compute Zones could help stimulate a sovereign cloud infrastructure, is that they’d serve as lightning rods of investment. Currently, investors are enormously deterred by the length of time for a return in investing in UK computing infrastructure, as data centers are endlessly held up by local authorities and restrictions.

Creating specific zones of enhanced planning processes would give investors an exit timeline, making the UK a more comfortable destination in which to deploy their capital. By catalyzing a flood of investment, the UK can generate its own sovereign cloud computing infrastructure without relying on government subsidies, which would be unlikely to be able to fund the process in the first place.

Finally, these Special Computing Zones, and the investment they pull in, would serve as the first port of call to modernize the UK’s ailing grid. It’s all well and good building the nuclear reactors, but if their power can’t actually reach the data centers then there’s no point.

The UK’s grid is unfortunately in a dire state, and it will not be able to support the loads required to power the country’s lofty AI ambitions. Fortunately, the influx of capital into Special Economic Zones, coupled with the building of nuclear power generators, will make this an absolute priority. With regulatory roadblocks removed, and clear exits in place, investors will be rushing to update the grid in order to get their energy and computing power to market.

If the UK wants to break free of the dominance of the US hyperscalers, then it needs to develop its own cloud computing infrastructure. There are however, currently some significant regulatory and infrastructural challenges in the way of this. Designating some Special Compute Zones around the country would help to clear these hurdles and would serve as lightning rods of vital foreign direct investment – as such they would pave the way for the UK to develop its own national computing infrastructure and to secure its future at the front of the AI race.