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Will the UK become one of the AI superpowers?

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We have learned from recent news coverage of The Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ visit to China how the UK government plans to โ€˜unleash AIโ€™ across the UK, in the hopes to boost growth. The government is aiming for the UK to become one of the AI “superpowers”, so that it can rival that of the US and China. But how does the UK shape up against these world superpowers?

Investment is a good indicator of future business strength. Following this logic, prompt management tool AIPRM has analysed venture capital investment trends from 2012 to current levels, to predict which countries will be investing the most in AI in 2025.

To do this, they gathered intel on venture capital investment in: AI start-ups, AI in environmental sustainability, generative AI start-ups and compute start-ups.

Will the UK become one of the AI superpowers?

  • Behind the US and China, the UK has the third highest venture capital investment in AI!
  • Interestingly, the UK is investing significantly less into AI compute start-ups than any other AI.
  • The third biggest investor into AI in environmental sustainability is Sweden, beating the UK out of the top three – UK place fifth.
  • All countries analysed have a positive growth in venture capital AI investment.

UK in third place for venture capital investments in AI

 

  Country 2012 $ 2023 $ 2024 $ 2025 prediction $
1st United States 2,474,000,000 54,836,000,000 80,493,000,000 87,400,000,000
2nd China 165,000,000 18,271,000,000 37,749,000,000 40,579,000,000
3rd United Kingdom 121,000,000 3,085,000,000 6,448,000,000 7,057,000,000
4th Germany 29,000,000 2,159,000,000 3,743,000,000 4,109,000,000
5th Israel 105,000,000 1,992,000,000 3,671,000,000 4,018,000,000
6th India 140,000,000 2,077,000,000 3,464,000,000 3,802,000,000
7th Canada 115,000,000 1,847,000,000 3,133,000,000 3,426,000,000
8th Korea 88,000,000 2,211,000,000 3,051,000,000 3,356,000,000
9th France 30,000,000 2,027,000,000 2,598,000,000 2,857,000,000
10th Sweden 700,000 1,988,000,000 2,357,000,000 2,614,000,000

Environmental sustainability being a key area of investment into AI

AIPRM can reveal that in first place, the United States is predicted to be the biggest investor in AI in 2025. In 2012, investors in the US were already pumping billions in AI ($2.4bn). By 2024, this has jumped to $80.5bn – using linear regression, AIPRM predicts that by 2025 the US will be investing $87.4bn, a whopping 3,432.7% increase from 2012! Notably, the United States had the highest predicted venture capital investments in AI compute start-ups in 2025 – at $9.5bn. AI compute start-ups are companies that focus on building the technology and infrastructure needed to run artificial intelligence systems more efficiently, quickly, and cheaply.

Following behind as the second highest predicted investorย  in 2025 is China. Despite being significantly lower than the US in 2012 (at $165m), investment in China has jumped all the way up to $37.7bn in 2024 – an increase of +22,778%. China is forecasted to be making investments in AI at around $40.5bn in 2025. Interestingly, China had the highest predicted venture capital investments in AI in environmental sustainability in 2025, forecasting a whopping $3bn.

Using AI for environmental sustainability use is a lesser known phenomenon but is used to help protect the planet and address bigger challenges. By using AI, it can act as a smart helper by analysing large amounts of data to find patterns and solutions that humans might miss.

The UK is predicted to be the third highest venture capital investor in 2025. In 2012, investments into AI were around $121m, today, investments into AI are $6.4bn. Using linear regression, forecasted figures suggest the UK will be investing around $7bn. The UK had the third highest venture capital investments in AI compute start-ups for 2025 (predicted $494m) and ranked 5th in predicted capital investments in AI in environmental sustainability in 2025 ($159m).

Investment into specific AI can be found in the full dataset.

How was the study into UK becoming aย 

  1. AIPRM were keen to uncover which countries around the globe had the highest venture capital investments in AI, as well as predicting what 2025 might look like for investors.
  2. To do this, OECD.AI global data was gathered on venture capital investment in: AI start-ups, AI and environmental sustainability, generative AI start-ups and compute start-ups. They looked at data from 2012 to to 2024.
  3. To then forecast next year’s data, they used linear regression to find the 2025 trends in venture capital investments into AI.
  4. Countries with a small amount of historical data were omitted from the forecast.
  5. All data was collected in November 2024 and is accurate as of then.

How do Executive Support Assistants feel about the use of AI at work? We cover this increasingly vital topics here.