Britain’s government pulls the plug on a superfast computer
The decision is likely to hurt researchers and AI companies
British scientific pursuits have long been thwarted by parsimony. Black Arrow, the only British rocket to successfully launch a satellite into orbit, was subjected to endless reviews by sceptical beancounters in the Treasury. The first attempt failed to reach orbit; by the time of the successful mission, in 1971, funding for the future of the programme had been cancelled, effectively ending the country’s orbital space programme as it began. After decades of gathering dust the rocket’s battered remains were put on display in Penicuik, near Edinburgh, in 2019.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “It doesn’t compute ”
Britain August 24th 2024
- The trial of Lucy Letby has shocked British statisticians
- Mike Lynch was Britain’s first software billionaire
- Britain’s government pulls the plug on a superfast computer
- The tricky politics of choosing Oxford’s next chancellor
- Youth clubs in Britain have been vanishing
- Britain’s boom in public inquiries into past disasters
From the August 24th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party