AI cancer cures slowed by chip shortage, says UK's biggest tech boss

The boss of the biggest UK-headquartered tech firm has said that artifical intelligence will find a cure for cancer that humans cannot in our lifetimes.

Rene Haas, chief executive of Cambridge-based chip designer Arm Holdings, said while modelling how a DNA marker is impacted by cancer was currently "too complex" a problem, computers are "going to solve it" in the future.

Haas also told the BBC that AI would lead to widespread humanoid robots in the next five years, but that its current rapid growth was being held up by a shortage of chips needed to build data centres.

However, he was sceptical about the idea chips could be manufactured in the UK in the future.

Arm designs the brains or CPUs of microchips already used in hundreds of billions of phones, cars, smartwatches and gadgets across the globe.

Earlier this summer, the company's peak share price amid the AI boom made it, in cash terms, the most valuable UK-based company in history.

Haas, who stepped down from the board of British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in April, told the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast : "AI is going to... find a cure for cancer that today you and I, other humans [could] not in our lifetimes. I believe in our lifetime, AI will help cure cancer.

"Modelling a cell, modelling a human, modelling how a DNA marker is impacted by cancer - it's too complex a problem, not only for humans today, but the computers that run AI.