Artificial intelligence will “be unleashed across the U.K. to deliver a decade of national renewal.” At least, that is the vow made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he unveiled a plan that his Labour Party government says will “turbocharge AI” and “deliver a decade of national renewal” by “backing AI to the hilt.”
Agreeing to take forward all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford, chairman of talent investor Entrepreneur First, in his “AI Opportunities Action Plan,” which he was tasked to draw up last summer, Starmer and his team said on Monday that AI could help with “revolutionizing our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets.”
Citing an International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate, the government emphasized that “if AI is fully embraced and productivity gains are fully realized, this could be worth up to an average £47 billion ($57 billion) to the U.K. each year over a decade.”
Concluded the government: “Today’s plan mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation – revolutionizing our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets. Because for too long we have allowed blockers to control the public discourse and get in the way of growth in this sector.” And it highlighted: “We can learn from the U.S’s and EU’s approach – delivering the dynamism, flexibility and long-term stability that we know businesses want.”
New measures in its AI blueprint to “make the U.K. irresistible to AI firms looking to start, scale, or grow their business” include the creation of dedicated AI Growth Zones “that speed up planning permission and give them the energy connections they need to power up AI.” The first of these zones will located in England’s Culham, Oxfordshire.
Other measures include “increasing the public compute capacity by 20-fold to give us the processing power we need to fully embrace this new technology,” starting with work on what the government described as “a brand new supercomputer” with enough AI power for it “to play itself at chess half a million times a second.”
Starmer’s government has made technological change a focus as of late, recently also launching a consultation on “plans to give certainty to the creative industries and AI developers on how copyright material can be used to train AI models.” Running until Feb. 25, its goal is helping to “drive growth across both sectors by ensuring protection and payment for rights holders and supporting AI developers to innovate responsibly.”
Last week, the Labour government promised to make “creating sexually explicit deepfake images a criminal offense” as it cracks down on “vile online abuse.”
Starmer on Monday promised that AI would “drive incredible change in our country,” adding: “But the AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that won’t sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race. Our plan will make Britain the world leader.”
Three technology companies, Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl, on Monday committed to £14 billion (£17 billion) in investments to build out the AI infrastructure in the U.K. and deliver 13,250 jobs, according to the government.
This Action Plan is also at the heart of the government’s Industrial Strategy and the first plank of the upcoming Digital and Technology Sector Plan, to be published in the coming months.
Business leaders also touted the U.K. AI push in the government’s announcement. “The scale of this government’s ambition for AI development and adoption in the U.K. is exactly what’s needed to drive economic growth, transform public services, and create new opportunities for all,” it quoted Darren Hardman, CEO of Microsoft U.K., as saying. “Maintaining the U.K.’s position as a global leader in AI demands innovation and investment across the public and private sectors, and Microsoft is fully committed to helping make this vision a reality.”
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of generative AI firm Anthropic, in which Amazon is a big investor, added: “The U.K.’s AI Opportunities Action Plan is a bold approach that could help unlock AI’s potential to solve real problems.”
And Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at AI giant OpenAI, in which Microsoft is a big investor, concluded: “From the locomotive to the Colossus computer, the U.K. has a rich history of leadership in tech innovation and the research and development of AI. … The U.K. has an enormous national resource in the talent of its people, institutions and businesses which together can leverage AI to advance the country’s national interest.”
