Edinburgh has the highest score outside of London in the SAS AI Cities Index 2023. This reveals the cities most likely to benefit from the growing commercial appetite for artificial intelligence.
The survey was compiled based on seven criteria, including AI-related job ads, number of AI companies in the city, number of tech meetups and amount of InnovateUK funding granted in each region.
InnovateUK is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and is dedicated to investing in and supporting cross-sectoral business innovation. The organization has just announced its new £50m development fund for ‘responsible and credible’ AI innovation in the UK.
According to SAS, Edinburgh has received around £43.7 million in funding from InnovateUK for projects from 2022 to 2025, with several million pounds for research projects at the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and Edinburgh Napier University. Substantial multiple grants are available.
In particular, the University of Edinburgh has its own AI Accelerator program aimed at fostering scale-up with a focus on commercializing AI applications and research products.
In addition to this funding, Edinburgh leaps to the top as the city with the most courses featuring AI elements.
SAS scoured all courses offered at UK universities to understand how AI is being used in technology-based and non-technology-based degrees.
Edinburgh had 57 courses with AI components, followed by Birmingham with 46 courses.
The Scottish capital, which also has 82 AI companies in the city, fell behind Birmingham with 83 and Manchester with 90 in this category.
Given that Edinburgh has a population of over 553,000 and Birmingham has a population of over 1 million, Edinburgh’s position is quite remarkable. Manchester’s population is just below Edinburgh’s, so he has the highest ratio of AI companies to population of the three cities.
AI job vacancies on LinkedIn were also surveyed, with Edinburgh in second place with 372 job ads at the time of the survey. Cambridge had the most jobs, with 401 AI job ads for him.
In the overall rankings, popular tech hubs such as Cambridge and Oxford lost out to Edinburgh, taking second and third place due to career opportunities in AI, city-based institutions and high life satisfaction.
The analysis also reveals which regions of the UK have seen the biggest growth in AI readiness since the 2022 index was released last year.Northern Ireland’s Newry, which finished last in 2022, has since risen from 74th to 25th, with a jump of 49th.
Leicester City also jumped from 50th in 2022 to 13th in 2023, moving closer to the top 10. Inverness, Norwich and Wells also made significant gains in the rankings, indicating that cities and councils are taking a number of steps to overhaul their AI readiness. Effort.
But the survey also shows which parts of the UK may not be ready to take full advantage of AI. Chichester was at the bottom of the list, followed by Bangor and Dundee.
Glynn Townsend, Senior Director of Education Services, SAS EMEA, said: “The UK has a goal of becoming a tech powerhouse by 2030. Who will fill them?” In the middle of a digital skills gap? TechUK reports that more than half of UK businesses cite talent availability as their biggest challenge over the next 12 months. “
The Digital Poverty Alliance finds that around 10 million Britons lack basic digital skills, even though Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the UK has the highest digital literacy in the world. bottom.
“More and more professions require elements of data literacy, so educators are turning to teaching people how to incorporate data literacy into their fields of expertise, along with data analytics and AI elements where appropriate. You have to be familiar with it,” Townsend continued.
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British cities still seem to have not caught up to the basics. Just this May, a new campaign to improve digital skills was launched in all primary schools, starting simply by providing students with computers.
Townsend argued that: “All cities, not just the largest or most populous, should be able to build, test, and implement AI technology. We need to build an ecosystem in
“While some cities have made significant gains over the last year, our research still highlights a wide gap between the most and least prepared regions. Beyond the digital and data literacy that some cities lack, we need to invest in regional AI centers of excellence and incubation hubs for new technologies that will power the economy of the future.”
For example, Dundee ranks last in SAS’ AI index, but the Tay Cities region continues to invest in promoting digital skills in the region. While some cities are catching up in broadband and digital adoption, they may be further behind in the AI race.
