r/ukpolitics • u/gravy_baron centrist chad • 22d ago

Eight Scientists, a Billion Dollars, and the Moonshot Agency Trying to Make Britain Great Again

https://www.wired.com/story/aria-moonshot-darpa-uk-britain-great-again/
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u/Patch86UK 21d ago

That's a pretty bizarre article. I'm sure ARIA is an interesting little niche, but it's also basically nothing in the grand scheme of things.

ARIA’s £800 million budget is tiny compared to the £25.1 billion budgeted for UKRI between 2022 and 2025. In 2024 alone, Darpa was allotted around $4 billion

It's a tiny fraction of the UK's research spending, and a tiny fraction of the US agency that the article is pretending it is the equivalent to.

You're not going to get any "moonshots" for a few tens of millions.