Although Britain has left the European Union, semiconductor development has emerged as one area in which it would like to partner to improve economies of scale and bring in much-needed funding.
The Government today announced that it will join the EU's Chip Joint Venture as a 'participating country', giving UK organizations access to €1.3 billion (approximately $1.4 billion) in funding for semiconductor research and development. Britain itself announced, as part of this, that it would provide a more modest £35 million ($44 million) in funding for British efforts over the next few years.
The government announced on Wednesday that an initial £5 million would be made available to organizations such as researchers and businesses operating in the UK to help them apply to access the funding. An additional £30m will be provided between 2025 and 2027 to fund further research.
Chips are essential and therefore extremely valuable building blocks for the future development of technology, whether it's advances in AI that require vast computing power or the development of new consumer electronics or next-generation cars. is.
But in a sign of how fragmented, or even more philanthropically competitive, the semiconductor development sector is now, the government estimates that there are “tens of thousands of UK companies” eligible for grants. , the grant is worth up to £450,000. average.
If you're interested after reading this, the deadline to apply is May 14th.
The UK's move highlights how the country has had to face the fact that it cannot afford to advance on its own in technology after leaving the EU. The news follows on from partnerships the UK has signed with South Korea (data sharing), Canada (science and innovation) and the US (wide-ranging technology and data agreements), among others.
Europe has bigger budgets, but it's also a little more complicated. For example, the Chips Collaborative has a total budget of around €11 billion from public and private donations. As such, it will be approved in 2023 to help the region reduce its dependence on semiconductor imports in the long term, especially given geopolitical tensions and how it affects supply chains. It is a product of the European Tipping Law.
Meanwhile, the business' research and development arm is described as part of Horizon Europe, a larger program for multi-sector research and development with a budget of €95.5 billion. The UK separately joined Horizon Europe last year, and companies that have already received grants from it include Nova Innovation, which raised £17m to develop tidal energy in the Orkney Islands; This includes startup company The Flow. Traffic safety technology.
Announcing the UK's new partnership at the Semiconductor Conference in London on Wednesday, UK Technology Secretary Saqib Bhatti said in an interview with TechCrunch that the clear benefit for UK organizations is access to EU funding. But it said its contribution would be reduced. -Edge Research.
In fact, research and development is calculated to become an even more valuable element in the current chip race for more powerful and efficient chips to handle heavier computational workloads for artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. I am.
“We bring a tremendous amount of talent and a tremendous amount of experience to the table,” he said. “I'm currently meeting with companies in the semiconductor industry and most of the conversations are about investing in the UK and leveraging our ecosystem and getting involved in our R&D departments. Underestimating the strength of our R&D side. We will come to the table as equal partners.”
The UK has played a key role in cutting-edge chip research, but as with other categories of technology hardware, the market more generally is dominated by a small number of companies, which is why this particular ecosystem is taking a big hit.
Cambridge-based Arm, a leading chip reference design company, recently achieved success as a publicly traded company after a planned sale to global chip giant Nvidia fell through due to antitrust laws. has nevertheless secretly amassed a stake in the company).
Graphcore, a promising start-up from Bristol that has positioned itself as a major market challenger, is now reportedly looking for a buyer at a fraction of its multi-billion dollar valuation. There is.
However, there remain other interesting smaller future players. In December 2023, another Cambridge-based semiconductor company, Pragmatic Semiconductor, raised $231 million at a valuation of $500 million. The UK government was one of the major investors in that round.
“We are very pleased to welcome the UK as a member of the Chips Joint Venture,” Chips JU Executive Director Yari Kinneret said in a statement. “We look forward to working with our UK partners to develop Europe’s industrial ecosystem in microelectronics and its applications, contributing to the continent’s scientific excellence and innovation leadership in semiconductor technology and related fields. Masu.”