The UK government has released its “AI Opportunities Action Plan”, outlining the 50 ways it will build the AI ​​sector and turn the country into a “world leader”. The strategy involves increasing public computing capacity twentyfold, creating a training data library and building AI hubs in deindustrialized areas.

Innovation is at the center of this new plan, which shows a clear turn from the risk-averse approach of the previous Conservative government, exemplified by its AI safety summit and safety pledges. Most recommendations focus on developing AI infrastructure, promoting adoption, growing talent and attracting investment.

“Our plan will make Britain the world leader,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said press releaseemphasizing the creation of “more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in people’s pockets, and transformed public services.”

Plan designed to boost AI use nationwide to ‘win the global race’

There are strong arguments for this shot in the arm for the technology sector. In August 2024, the number of tech start-ups founded in the UK suffered its first “significant decline” since 2022. This metric is seen as an indicator of industry growth – or lack thereof.

The UK ranks third in the world for AI readiness according to research from Stanford University, falling well behind the US and China. Tech giants such as Google have also spoken out about UK laws preventing AI models from being trained on copyrighted material and called for a “pro-innovation regulatory framework” to prevent the country from being left behind.

SEE: UK government announces £32m of AI projects

On the other hand, evidence suggests that AI safety and regulation still has considerable room for improvement. A report from Microsoft found that almost half of UK SMEs do not use AI technology in any capacity, and 72% cited concerns about their potential unreliability as a barrier to its adoption. In October 2023, research from the University of Cambridge determined that the UK needs AI legislation in safety and transparency so companies can confidently put resources into AI development.

The government has the task of technology entrepreneur and newly appointed AI Opportunity Advisor Matt Clifford on develop the action plan in July, which he discussed with venture capital firms. Its 50 recommendations on how to grow AI and promote its adoption will be implemented in the UK’s plan.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the AI ​​action plan could see annual productivity gains of 1.5% and boost the economy by an average of £47 billion annually over a decade. Furthermore, Microsoft research found that adding just five years to the time it takes to implement AI in the UK could reduce its economic impact by more than £150bn in 2035.

The Prime Minister said: “The AI ​​industry needs a government that is on their side, one that will not sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we can’t help it. We need to move quickly and take action to win the world race.”

Clifford’s most important recommendations

Clifford’s proposals fall under three broad categories: laying the foundation for AI to thrive, boosting AI adoption in public and private sectors, and putting the UK ahead. Thirty of the recommendations relate to the first category, which includes:

• Establish “AI growth zones” in deindustrialized areas: Within these zones, planning requests for data centers will be expedited, and AI infrastructure will have better access to the energy grid, ideally from clean sources such as nuclear fusion. This is necessary as the construction of new data centers in the UK is on hold due to insufficient electricity supply. Three private technology companies have already pledged £14bn for this.
• Increase public computing capacity twentyfold by 2030: Clifford found that this would give the UK the processing power it needs to fully embrace AI. As of November 2022, the UK only has 1.3% of global computing capacitywhile Microsoft ranked the country 11th in the world for cloud infrastructure in May. This initiative will be started by building a new supercomputer, a change of heart since the government scrapped £1.3 billion for building these resources in August.
• Create a national data library: This will involve the collection of “five high-impact public datasets” to be made available to private AI researchers, but there is little clarity on how this will be achieved “responsible, safe and ethical,” as claimed. Clifford also recommends creating a “copyright-free UK media asset training dataset”, which can be licensed internationally. This is unlikely to be accepted by creative industries, which just last month called for greater protection of copyright laws so that artists retain control when licensing to AI firms.
• Be more aggressive with text and data mining: Similarly, Clifford says that “current uncertainty around intellectual property is stifling innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI.” He recommends reforming text and data mining practices. While he mentions that rights holders leave control over the use of their content, the mandate suggests that this is not a priority. The government has launched a consultation on this recommendation.
• Require regulators to declare how they support AI innovation: Data regulators are far too risk averse from Clifford’s perspective. He believes they should take active steps to support the growth of AI, such as granting more licenses and AI resources and reporting them annually. If reporting mandates and deadlines don’t provide enough pressure, he suggests employing a new central body with a “higher risk tolerance” to make such decisions.
• Nurture AI talent: The AI ​​Action Plan contains several recommendations to support AI talent in the UK, including assessing the skills gap, supporting higher education institutions to acquire relevant skills and boost AI graduates, expanding the number of AI -educational pathways, using the immigration system to attract graduates to international universities, and actively promoting diversity. Indeed, just 28% of Coursera’s generative AI course enrollments is of women.

SEE: Red Hat: AI is the UK’s most in-demand skill for 2024.

Details on the three categories of recommendations

Compared to strategies for promoting innovation, there is relatively little nod to AI safety within this first category of recommendations. This includes continuing to support the AI ​​Safety Institute and its research and building assurance tools.

The second category of the AI ​​Opportunities Action Plan suggests how, after laying the groundwork, the government can promote the adoption of AI in the public and private sectors. Clifford recommends taking a “Scan → Pilot → Scale” approach whereby government identifies high-impact opportunities for AI in the public sector, prototypes a solution, and then scales it across industries and regions. It also proposes making digital government infrastructure available to private technology companies, creating an AI Knowledge Hub with guidance for both the private and public sectors, and addressing barriers to private sector user adoption.

The third category looks at how the government can “keep the UK at the forefront internationally” when it comes to growing the AI ​​industry. The category contains only one recommendation: the creation of the Sovereign AI Unit to support AI research in the private sector. It will provide companies with financial investment, computing, data sets, overseas talent and access to the national security community “to maximize the UK’s chance of growing globally competitive national champions.”

Tech giants praise UK’s AI vision, but fears of cyber-attacks and copyright exploitation remain

Tech companies have generally responded positively to the AI ​​Opportunities Action Plan. They reach back to British innovations of the past such as the locomotive and Colossus computer to exemplify the cutting-edge technology that makes this possible. They also cite the UK’s attitude towards AI as the reason they set up shop here.

Alison Kay, VP overseeing the UK and Ireland at Amazon Web Services, said that the benefits that AI can bring and enhance is why it has pledged to invest £8 billion in data centres in the country.

Zahra Bahrololoumi, CEO of Salesforce UK and Ireland, told TechRepublic in an email that the UK’s “prime position to fully unlock the opportunities of AI” is why it chose it as the location of its first AI center ever.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Michael Adjei, director of systems engineering at data center security company Illumio, said researchers with access to the proposed National Data Library “will become prime targets for cyberattacks.”

SEE: 87% of UK businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks

“Cybercriminals will try to exploit the hidden layers of AI, which are often proprietary and under-explored,” he told TechRepublic in an email. “Vulnerabilities and coding errors in these layers can go undiscovered longer than in other AI layers, opening up third parties to exploitation.”

Creative industries are also not sold on the new plan. Dawn Alford, Executive Director of the Society of Editors, said in a statement: “While we support efforts to drive growth, the government must also seek to support the creative industries that continue to be exploited by the unauthorized scraping of their content by generative AI tools.”

“The UK can achieve civil service reform and seize all the growth opportunities associated with AI without facilitating a US technology-led robbery of UK copyright works,” Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association, added in a statement.