Yesterday, the UK government delivered a press conference where they announced a plan to support artifical intelligence development within the UK. This announcement spoke about the potential of the UK to be a powerhouse in the AI industry, and detailed the steps that the current government were taking to promote this.

General thoughts

Overall, I thought this was a very positive move from the government. I think they correctly identified an opportunity that is both significant, and also an appropriate fit for the UK economy. Whilst political agenda would naturally seek to augment British renown in this space, we do actually have a decent legacy in the AI space, as well as the data and AI chops to back it up. As the Prime Minister said: “right now, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, who will make those breakthroughs, they’re looking around the world, they’re choosing where to make their home”. Having thought about this myself, I think that the UK has a good bid for such cases.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan

The AI Opportunities Action Plan set out some interesting recommendations, all of which the government has accepted. Here’s my summary of the key bits below:

  1. Improve compute infrastructure: increase AI Research Resource (AIRR) funding by 20x, build data centers next to fusion reactors, etc.
  2. Unlock data assets: create a National Data Library (NDL) with open public data sets, improve public data collection infrastructure.
  3. Increase number of AI graduates: more places, Fullbright-level AI scholarships to the UK, improve UK immigration system.
  4. AI safety: scale up regulator funding, and power up ability to allow AI innovation, AI Safety Institute and Alan Turing Institute.
  5. Operational stuff: recommendations 31-50 are mostly about how to achieve the above (interoperability being #42!)

My 2 cents: the power of the NHS

Building on what is mentioned above, I think the UK has another superpower when it comes to AI growth opportunity, and that is the NHS. For all the issues of a universal public health system, a massive advantage is that it provides a context for coordinate collection and management of data. Providing high-quality data on a health system, with a diverse population, is always challenging but the universal system of the NHS has a big headstart from a technical perspective. On top of that, I would argue the ethical grounding for the NHS is stronger, as it’s motives derive from public benefit rather than private profit, which would hopefully promote buy-in from those whose data is used.

The governent has, rightly, identified data assets as one of the key aspects of driving AI forward in the UK. Both in terms of regulation and technical implementation, I think the NHS truly has potential to be the best data asset available globally. When the Prime Minister speaks about companies choosing there home, I think there will be few forces better able to drive.