The UK is hoping to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” by developing transport links and housing infrastructure in Oxford and Cambridge.
It comes as the UK government looks to repair relations with the country’s tech sector, which have become increasingly frosty amid tax hikes and funding cuts in the past seven months.
The two cities are considered hubs for deeptech sectors including life sciences, semiconductors and quantum, and lie around an hour’s travel outside of London.
They’re the UK’s best-funded startup scenes outside of the capital — though the gulf is wide. Last year, tech companies in Oxford and Cambridge raised €2bn, according to Sifted data, way short of London’s €17bn.
The plans will involve building thousands more homes in Cambridge, as well as office and lab space — something that’s previously been at a premium — and improve water infrastructure to support new homes and invest in travel links between those cities.
Cambridge is currently home to the likes of surgical robotics company CMR Surgical, semiconductor startup Pragmatic and quantum developer Quantinuum — which together have raised more than €2bn.
Oxford counts biotechs Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Exscientia, alongside autonomous vehicles startup Oxa — which have also together raised upwards of €2bn — among its homegrown companies.
The government will also commission a review into how “nationally significant growth” can be unlocked in Oxford and appoint science minister Patrick Vallance to oversee these plans.
The announcement comes following the release of the UK’s grand AI plan, which included billions of pounds of investment into AI infrastructure and increasing the country’s compute power twentyfold by 2030.
The first AI Growth Zone — part of the AI plan that will speed up planning approvals and allow better access to the energy grid for data centres — will be in Oxfordshire.
Recent government moves, including plans to mobilise £80bn investment into new businesses, critical infrastructure and VC funds from the country’s pension funds, are signs that it's looking to repair a tense relationship with the country's tech sector.
The UK axed £1.3bn in tech funding over the summer, before hiking business tax — including employee national insurance contributions and tax paid on an exit — in the Autumn budget. Last week, tech minister Peter Kyle told Sifted that the UK was also looking to ramp up government procurement deals with homegrown startups.
