The UK Government has set out their AI Opportunities Action Plan to ‘mainline AI into the veins" of the UK in an announcement made by Keir Starmer.
Starmer confirmed the government would be following all 50 recommendations outlined by Matt Clifford in the ‘AI Opportunities action plan’.
AI is already more widely used across the UK than you may think - and it’s making a huge impact already. For example, in hospitals it’s used to deliver faster and smarter care. It's is used to spotting pain levels for people who can’t communicate, diagnosing cancer, and ultimately getting patients discharged quicker.
Read: CHIEF AI Can Detect Multiple Forms of Cancer
Starmer wants the UK to become a world leader in AI from both an investment perspective as well as in a role of transforming the lives of working people. AI has the potential to help eliminate roadblocks in key sectors from assisting teachers with streamlining repetitive administrative tasks to using cameras to spot potholes before they become a major issue.
Read: Top British School Appoints AI Chatbot as Headteacher
The government claims that the AI Opportunities Action Plan will make the UK 'irresistible to AI firms looking to start, scale, or grow their business.'
The International Monetary Fund estimates that the UK embracing AI would boost productivity by 1.5 percentage points a year. This could be worth an average of £47 billion to the UK each year over a decade.
Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl Commit to £14 billion Investment
The UK plan is accompanied by a massive £14 billion commitment from three major tech companies: Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl.
This massive investment will be used to build the AI infrastructure that is needed for the UK to to harness the power of AI. This is estimated to provide 13,250 new roles to the job market.
Vantage Data Centres' investment will be the biggest portion at £12 billion provided to build the necessary data centres across the UK. This will create over 11,500 jobs.
Kyndryl's focus will be on creating 1,000 AI-related jobs based in Liverpool. By creating a new tech hub they will help to roll AI out across the country to help grow the economy as well as foster the next generation of talent.
Nscale’s $2.5 billion investment will support the UK's data centre infrastructure over the next three years. They will build the largest UK sovereign AI data centre based in in Loughton, Essex.
AI Growth Zones Set Up Across UK
A major pillar of the AI Opportunities Action Plan will be to set up AI Growth Zones.
These will be areas that will speed up the planning approval process for the rapid build of data centers, giving them easier access to the energy grid and, hopefully, draw investment from around the world.
The first AI Growth Zone has been confirmed as Culham, Oxfordshire, which is already home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority.
Further AI Growth Zones will be set up and confirmed by Summer 2025. The government commits to these being in de-industrialised areas of the country with access to power. They will receive strong support from the local government.
The government will also set up its own digital centre within DSIT. This aims to revolutionize the use of AI in the public sector with a priority on making the government more efficient and improvising citizen lives.
It will aim to achieve this by scanning for new ideas, then pilot them in public sector settings and, if successful, scale them as efficiently as possible. As part of this, The Prime Minister has directly asked members of his cabinet to focus on driving AI adoption and growth in their departments.
Who is Matt Clifford? The Man Behind the AI Opportunities Action Plan
Matt Clifford is a British tech entrepreneur. He is not only the world's leading talent investor but the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in exceptional talent rather than their specific ideas
He is the founding chair of ARIA, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency. As a part of this he was appointed by the government to develop a strategy to integrate AI effectively across the UK. This became known as the AI Opportunities Action Plan.
