Edinburgh has been named the UK’s most AI-ready city outside of London, beating out the likes of Oxford and Cambridge, according to new research.
The AI Cities Index 2023 from the analytics firm SAS has put the Scottish capital as the city most ready to take advantage of new developments in the rapidly growing AI sector.
The index examined seven factors to determine UK cities’ AI readiness, including the availability of jobs in the sector, the number of AI firms in the city and the number of university courses offering AI elements.
The research found that Edinburgh was home to 82 AI firms, beating second place Cambridge with 66, and 57 AI university courses, more than five times Cambridge’s 10.
Notable companies using innovative AI tech in the city include the remote care management platform Current Health (acquired by Best Buy for $400m in 2021), the augmented business intelligence firm Brainnwave and the cybersecurity company ZoneFox.
Also in the top five cities were Oxford, Birmingham and Bristol. At the bottom end of the list was Chichester, followed by Bangor and Dundee.
“All cities – not just those that are the largest or most populated – need to be able to build, test and implement AI technologies,” said Glyn Townsend, senior director of education services at SAS EMEA.
“They need to create an ecosystem between institutions, research and commercial applications to develop and deploy future technology.”
Townsend noted that despite the research suggesting some cities have experienced impressive growth from last year, “our research still highlights large discrepancies between the most and least-prepared areas”.
He called for investment in “regional AI centres of excellence and incubation hubs for new and emerging technology to fuel the future economy”.
Last year Cambridge ranked top for SAS’s most “AI-ready city’, with Edinburgh ranking fourth.
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