Building Scotland’s future through AI infrastructure, guest blog by CoreWeave VP of Strategy, Ben Richardson

Scotland has a long history of shaping the modern world through invention, from Alexander Graham Bell to John Logie Baird and Alexander Fleming. The opportunity with AI is no different. But breakthroughs face a bottleneck: can Scottish innovators access the computing capacity they need?

Generally, pushing the boundaries of AI is not about owning the infrastructure, but tapping into high-performance compute through the cloud. The speed and ease of that access determines what can be built, and where.

Scotland has developed real momentum in AI.  The Scottish Government recently published its AI Strategy. It recognises the importance of research, talent and collaboration in shaping a competitive AI ecosystem, and sets out an ambition for Scotland to play a leading role in AI infrastructure.

Speed is of the essence, and while the 2027 objectives in the strategy are the right ones, these need to be met on time, or sooner.  AI progress is measured in months, not years. Delays in enabling access to the compute required will slow innovation, and risk it moving to other economies. Ensuring that Scotland’s strengths translate into real economic advantage will require coordinated action across government, industry and academia.

Scottish universities remain at the forefront of research, and programmes like Techscaler are helping convert research into credible commercial ventures.  Since 2022, companies within this network have raised more than £250 million, reflecting a growing pipeline of founders building AI-driven businesses.

But we need to use this momentum to address a new challenge.  Demand for AI compute is no longer limited to large technology firms. It is being driven by startups, scale-ups and organisations across both the private and public sector. This demand will benefit Scotland,particularly from a public sector productivity perspective. AI is expected to free up 62.1 million staff hours per year in Scotland’s public sector alone by 2030, releasing officials from routine tasks.

As we move from AI experimentation to real-world deployment, demand will grow exponentially. Already, demand is outpacing access, which underlines the critical need to deploy cloud computing at scale. The value of this infrastructure will lie in how quickly it can be provisioned, how reliably it performs and how easily it scales.

Building on these foundations, Scotland is well positioned to deliver on the opportunity. As a result,CoreWeave is committing to invest £1.5 billion to deploy a new AI cloud location at the Data Vita site in Lanarkshire and has recently announced a partnership with tech ecosystem builder CodeBase, helping Scotland realise its AI potential.

Scotland combines structural advantages that are increasingly important in the AI economy: a renowned research base, a growing pipeline of innovation, and access to abundant renewable energy to support the scaling of advanced computing.  Taken together, these are not isolated strengths. They form the basis of a system capable of competing with other emerging AI economies.

Should Scotland get this right, and maintain or even quicken current momentum, it can play a wider role as a platform for building AI that serves both domestic and European demand.

The framework for development is clear. It is now incumbent on the Scottish Government to turn this hard-earned momentum into a lasting advantage.