The government promised more AI growth zones 'this summer.' The fifth did not arrive until the same week ministers cited all five as proof the plan was working.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
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In short. On 30 April 2025 the government promised that new AI Growth Zones, beyond the first at Culham, would be "announced this summer." The second landed on 16 September, after summer had ended; the third and fourth on 13 and 20 November; the fifth, Lanarkshire, not until 29 January 2026, DSIT's own words putting it at "the 12 months since the launch" of the plan, not the promised few months. That fifth zone landed the same day the government published a "One Year On" report citing all five zones, and a self-graded 38-of-50 scorecard, as evidence the plan was delivering, a report whose own text puts several of its headline items in the future tense. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
On 12 January 2025, launching the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the Prime Minister named Culham, Oxfordshire as the UK's first AI Growth Zone and promised the rest would follow fast: "More will be announced in the Summer, with a particular focus on de-industrialised areas of the country with access to power and strong support from local government" [1]. A follow-up press release that April repeated the commitment in almost identical words: "The first additional sites will then be announced this summer" [2]. Summer 2025 came and went. The zones kept arriving anyway, just not on that timetable.
What "this summer" actually meant
The North East, the second zone, was announced on 16 September, more than two weeks after meteorological summer ended [3]. North Wales followed on 13 November, backed by a DSIT press release headlined "AI Growth Zones to create thousands of jobs and unlock up to £100 billion in investment, as new site confirmed for North Wales" [4]. South Wales came a week after that, welcomed by the Welsh Government on 21 November as a UK government announcement made the day before [5]. The fifth and final zone of the first wave, Lanarkshire, was not designated until 29 January 2026. DSIT's own press release put the whole rollout in context: Lanarkshire "joins a stable of 5 AI Growth Zones announced in the 12 months since the launch of the AI Opportunities Action Plan" [6]. Twelve months, not "this summer": the department's own phrase for how long delivering four more zones actually took is the same span the launch document used to describe the life of the whole plan so far.
The date is not incidental. The same day, DSIT published "AI Opportunities Action Plan: One Year On," a progress report opening with the claim that "we have now met our commitments against 38 of the 50 actions" [7], a figure the Lanarkshire release repeats almost verbatim: "the government has met 38 of its 50 commitments" [6]. Among the evidence offered for that score: "The government designated five AI Growth Zones across Great Britain, including 2 in Wales and one in Scotland, generating £28.2 billion in investment, creating more than 15,000 jobs" (page 9) [7]. True by the calendar, since the fifth zone had just landed, but the sentence reads as settled delivery, not as a target reached on the last possible day before the report went to print.
A "delivered" report with its own future tense
The 38-of-50 framing sits awkwardly against the report's own wording elsewhere. Several of the achievements listed under "tangible progress against our Action Plan commitments" (page 8) [7] are described in language that has not happened yet. On the AI Growth Lab sandbox and the wider assurance ecosystem: "The first round of the AI Assurance Innovation Fund will open for applications in Spring 2026" (page 12) [7]. On Extract, the planning-document tool: it is "expected to be made available to all councils by Spring 2026" (page 13) [7]. On AI tutoring in schools: "By March 2026, we will launch tenders and partnership work for co-creation and in-school trials" (page 13) [7]. On the Sovereign AI Unit, the body meant to back UK AI companies with up to £500 million: "The government will launch the next phase of the Sovereign AI Unit in April 2026" (page 15) [7]. A report titled "One Year On" and framed around a completed scorecard spends four of its own headline items describing things scheduled for the months after publication, not things already done.
The compute roadmap missed its own date too
The pattern is not confined to growth zones. In its formal response to the original 50 recommendations, published the same day as the plan itself, the government accepted Recommendation 1: to "set out, within six months, a long-term plan for UK's AI infrastructure needs, backed by a 10-year investment commitment," with the reply that "DSIT will publish a long-term compute strategy in Spring 2025" and a delivery timeline column reading, simply, "Spring 2025" (page 8) [8]. The document that fulfilled that commitment, the UK Compute Roadmap, was first published on 17 July 2025 [9], nearly four weeks after spring had ended and around ten weeks after the department's own "within six months" language would have expired. A flagship infrastructure strategy, the foundation the report says everything else in the plan sits on, arrived later than the date the government itself put in writing.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record actually shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "More will be announced in the Summer" (12 Jan 2025) [1]; repeated as "announced this summer" (30 Apr 2025) [2] | Zones 2 to 5 landed 16 Sep, 13 Nov, 21 Nov 2025 and 29 Jan 2026, a rollout DSIT itself later described as spanning "the 12 months since the launch" [6] | A summer promise that took a year |
| "We have now met our commitments against 38 of the 50 actions" (p.8) [7] | The same report describes four of its own headline items as due in Spring 2026, March 2026 and April 2026 (pp.12, 13, 15) [7] | A "delivered" scorecard built partly from not-yet-delivered items |
| Recommendation 1's delivery timeline: "Spring 2025" (p.8) [8] | The UK Compute Roadmap it committed to was first published 17 July 2025 [9] | The foundational document missed its own date |
The mistakes, counted
The "this summer" promise for new AI Growth Zones took a year to complete (1). Made on 12 January and repeated on 30 April 2025 [1] [2], the fifth of five zones did not land until 29 January 2026, a span DSIT's own release describes as "the 12 months since the launch" [6].
The "One Year On" progress report counts not-yet-delivered items among its evidence of delivery (2). Its 38-of-50 claim (p.8) [7] sits alongside four separate commitments the report itself schedules for March, Spring and April 2026, after the report's own publication date.
The government's own compute strategy missed the delivery date it set for itself (3). Promised for "Spring 2025" in the formal response to the plan's first recommendation (p.8) [8], the UK Compute Roadmap was published on 17 July 2025 [9].
Credit where due
Some of what the One Year On report claims is real and checkable, not aspiration dressed as delivery. Isambard-AI, the Bristol supercomputer, actually switched on in July 2025 and exists today; the AI Security Institute has grown to more than 100 researchers and has tested 30 frontier models, a specific, falsifiable claim rather than a vague one (page 12) [7]. Over a million free AI courses had genuinely been delivered by the report's own account, a number that, unlike the growth zones, was not backdated to beat a deadline. And every Growth Zone did, eventually, land: the delay is real, but so is the £28.2 billion in investment and more than 15,000 jobs the report attributes to the finished set (page 9) [7], figures this piece has not independently verified but which rest on named, locatable projects rather than an unsourced total.
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. None of them are about whether the AI Opportunities Action Plan is a good idea; they are about whether the government's own account of delivering it holds up against the government's own dates. A "this summer" promise that became a 12-month rollout, a "One Year On" report that schedules a quarter of its own highlights for after publication, and a flagship infrastructure strategy that missed the date its authors wrote down for themselves: none of it undoes the substance of what has been built, but all of it means the 38-of-50 scorecard was marked by the people being marked.
Sources
- Prime Minister sets out blueprint to turbocharge AI, GOV.UK, 12 January 2025
- Investors and local authorities gear up as AI Growth Zone delivery gathers speed, GOV.UK, 30 April 2025
- North East England set for billions in investment and thousands of jobs through new AI Growth Zone, North East Combined Authority, 16 September 2025
- AI Growth Zones to create thousands of jobs and unlock up to £100 billion in investment, as new site confirmed for North Wales, GOV.UK, 13 November 2025
- Welsh Government welcomes Artificial Intelligence Growth Zone for south Wales, Welsh Government, 21 November 2025
- More than 3,400 jobs and targeted support for local communities to help tackle the cost of living as Lanarkshire named latest AI Growth Zone, GOV.UK, 29 January 2026
- AI Opportunities Action Plan: One Year On, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, 29 January 2026
- AI Opportunities Action Plan: government response, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, 13 January 2025
- UK Compute Roadmap, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and UK Research and Innovation, 17 July 2025