AI Opportunities Action Plan

 

In this briefing note, we look at the AI Opportunities Action Plan led by Matt Clifford CBE, tech entrepreneur and Chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). The document has 50 recommendations for government to:

• grow the UK’s AI sector.
• drive adoption of AI across the economy to boost growth.
• improve products and services.

Summary

The “AI Opportunities Action Plan” outlines the UK government’s ambitious plan to position the country as a global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The plan acknowledges the UK’s existing strengths in AI research, talent, and a vibrant startup scene, but also recognises the risk of falling behind the USA and China. The action plan is built around three key pillars:

1. laying the foundations for AI (infrastructure, data, talent, regulation),
2. embracing AI to change lives (particularly through public sector adoption), and
3. securing the future with homegrown AI champions.

The plan stresses the need for bold action, strong public-private partnerships, and a willingness to take calculated risks.

Key Themes and Ideas

The opportunity and urgency

AI as a Lever for Growth: The document emphasises AI as a critical driver for economic growth, stating, “AI capabilities are developing at an extraordinary pace. If this continues, artificial intelligence (AI) could be the government’s single biggest lever to deliver its five missions, especially the goal of kickstarting broad-based economic growth.”

Risk of Falling Behind: While the UK is currently the third largest AI market, there’s a clear concern about being outpaced by the US and China. The document highlights, “the UK risks falling behind the advances in Artificial Intelligence made in the USA and China.”

A Crucial Asymmetric Bet: The plan sees investment in AI as a crucial “asymmetric bet,” suggesting that the risks of under-investing are far greater than over-investing. The document argues, “If, however, capabilities continue to advance, having a stake in – and being the natural home of – advanced AI could be the difference between shaping the future of science, technology and work, or instead seeing these decisions made entirely outside our borders.”

Global Leadership: The UK aims to lead the world in ethical and effective AI development, leveraging its established position on AI safety, saying “we believe Britain has a particular responsibility to provide global leadership in fairly and effectively seising the opportunities of AI, as we have done on AI safety.”

Principles: The plan is guided by core principles including being on the side of innovators, investing in becoming a great customer (Government), crowding in capital and talent, and building on the UK’s strengths.

Laying the foundations to enable AI

AI Infrastructure: Compute is Critical: Access to powerful computing resources (“compute”) is considered foundational, with the document stating, “the foundation of the last decade of AI progress has been an extraordinary and sustained investment in computational power.”

Three-Tiered Approach: The plan proposes a multi-faceted approach to compute, including “Sovereign AI compute” (publicly owned/allocated), “Domestic compute” (privately owned within the UK), and “International compute” (via partnerships).

AI Growth Zones (AIGZs): The plan recommends the establishment of AIGZs, which would streamline planning approvals and accelerate the provisioning of clean power for AI data centres. This includes setting a long-term plan for AI infrastructure, expanding the AI Research Resource (AIRR) by at least 20x by 2030, strategically allocating sovereign compute via “AIRR program directors”, mitigating sustainability and security risks, and securing international compute partnerships.

Unlocking Data Assets: Data as “Lifeblood”: The document emphasises data as crucial for AI development, “To fuel both frontier AI progress and high-quality AI applications, developers need access to high-quality data – the lifeblood of modern AI.”

National Data Library (NDL): The plan calls for the responsible unlocking of public and private datasets through the NDL, highlighting that “the creation of the National Data Library (NDL) presents an enormous opportunity.”

Strategic Data Collection: The plan moves beyond simply making existing data available and instead emphasises strategically shaping data collection. This involves identifying high-impact public data sets, shaping what data is collected, publishing data release guidelines, coupling compute allocation with data access, and incentivising private data curation.

Talent Development: Skills Gap: The document acknowledges a significant skills gap in the AI sector and aims to train “tens of thousands of additional AI professionals across the technology stack”. It recognises the current data for skill gaps are “imprecise and outdated.”

Diverse Talent: The plan highlights the need for diverse talent, noting that only “17% of UK students in computer science are women”, aiming for greater parity.

Multiple Pathways: The plan seeks to expand education routes into AI beyond higher education, and recommends a flagship scholarship program on par with Rhodes.

Elite Headhunting: A key priority is attracting and retaining top AI researchers and leaders through a new headhunting capability, saying “establish an internal headhunting capability on par with top AI firms to bring a small number of elite individuals to the UK.”

Immigration System: The plan recognises the importance of the immigration system to attract top graduate talent and suggests this should be reformed. These include accurate skills gap assessment, supporting universities, expanding education pathways, launching AI scholarships, aligning lifelong skills with AI, headhunting talent, using the immigration system, and expanding fellowship programs.

Regulation, Safety and Assurance: Pro-innovation approach: The plan promotes a pro-innovation approach to regulation, emphasising the need to “fuel fast, wide and safe development and adoption of AI.”

AI Safety Institute (AISI): The plan prioritises support for the AI Safety Institute, recognising its success in leading model evaluations and its role in the regulatory space.

Text and Data Mining: Reforming the UK text and data mining regime is seen as essential for competitiveness with the EU.

Sector Regulators: Sector regulators are expected to scale up their AI capabilities and focus on enabling safe AI innovation. This involves supporting the AISI, reforming data mining rules, funding sector regulators, embedding AI in strategic guidance, accelerating AI in priority sectors through sandboxes, and supporting the development of AI assurance tools.

Change lives by embracing AI

AI Adoption in Government: Core to Missions: AI adoption is seen as critical for delivering government missions, stating, “AI Adoption is core to delivering the government’s missions.”

“Scan → Pilot → Scale”: The plan recommends a flexible approach to government adoption of AI involving:

• Scan: building a deep understanding of AI capabilities.
• Pilot: rapidly developing prototypes in high-impact areas.
• Scale: rolling out successful pilots beyond organisational boundaries.

This includes appointing mission AI leads, establishing a technical horizon scanning capability, creating partnerships with AI vendors, supporting rapid prototyping, streamlining procurement, and creating a scaling service for successful pilots.

Public-Private Reinforcement: Mutual Reinforcement: The document underscores the need for mutually reinforcing roles for both the public and private sectors.

Government as a Customer and Market Shaper: Government should procure smartly, using its spending power to encourage investment and innovation, saying “procure smartly from the AI ecosystem as both its largest customer and as a market shaper.”

Digital Infrastructure as Opportunity: Leveraging digital government infrastructure to create new opportunities for innovators is vital. This includes smart procurement, using government infrastructure to create new opportunities, creating an “AI Knowledge Hub,” and identifying quick wins to support the plan’s approach.

Private Sector Adoption: Economic Growth: The document notes that AI adoption could add £400 billion to the UK economy by 2030.

Leveraging Industrial Strategy: The new Industrial Strategy should drive collective action to support AI adoption.

AI Sector Champions: Appointing AI Sector Champions in key industries is recommended. These include leveraging the Industrial Strategy, appointing AI sector champions, and driving AI adoption across the whole country.

Secure our future with homegrown AI

National Champions: AI Maker, Not Taker: The UK must aim to be an AI maker, not just a user, creating a vibrant domestic AI ecosystem.

Frontier AI: Generating national champions at the frontier of AI capabilities is paramount for national and economic security.

Activist Approach: This requires a more activist approach from government, akin to Japan’s MITI or Singapore’s Economic Development Board.

Specific Actions: This includes creating “UK Sovereign AI” as a new unit with the power to partner with the private sector, supporting research and development, leveraging non-financial assets like access to valuable data sets and infrastructure, and headhunting top talent.

UK Sovereign AI: This will be the coordinating entity to develop a government offer to new and existing frontier AI companies with direct investment opportunities and access to AI Growth Zones.

Conclusion

Long-Term View and Immediate Action: The plan requires both a long-term vision and immediate, decisive action, recognising that “business as usual is not an option.”

Whole-of-Government Commitment: A whole of government commitment with visible leadership is essential.

Transformational Benefits: The plan acknowledges the potential for transformational benefits for both the economy and people’s lives.

Key Quotes

“AI capabilities are developing at an extraordinary pace. If this continues, artificial intelligence (AI) could be the government’s single biggest lever to deliver its five missions, especially the goal of kickstarting broad-based economic growth.”

“the UK risks falling behind the advances in Artificial Intelligence made in the USA and China.”

“We believe Britain has a particular responsibility to provide global leadership in fairly and effectively seizing the opportunities of AI, as we have done on AI safety.”

“To fuel both frontier AI progress and high-quality AI applications, developers need access to high-quality data – the lifeblood of modern AI.”

“The foundation of the last decade of AI progress has been an extraordinary and sustained investment in computational power.”

“AI Adoption is core to delivering the government’s missions.”

“procure smartly from the AI ecosystem as both its largest customer and as a market shaper.”

“If, however, capabilities continue to advance, having a stake in – and being the natural home of – advanced AI could be the difference between shaping the future of science, technology and work, or instead seeing these decisions made entirely outside our borders.”

“business as usual is not an option.”

Recommendations

1. Prioritise the swift establishment of AI infrastructure, particularly the expansion of the AIRR and the creation of AIGZs.
2. Fast-track the development of the National Data Library, focusing on strategically important public datasets.
3. Implement the headhunting program to attract elite AI talent to the UK.
4. Empower sector regulators to effectively address the safe adoption of AI in their respective areas.
5. Immediately initiate the “Scan → Pilot → Scale” approach in key government missions.
6. Formally launch the “UK Sovereign AI” unit with a clear mandate and resources.

Conclusion

The UK AI Opportunities Action Plan is an ambitious and comprehensive strategy to position the UK at the forefront of the global AI revolution. The plan acknowledges the inherent challenges but emphasises the extraordinary potential that AI offers to drive economic growth, improve public services, and enhance the lives of citizens. The plan’s success relies on proactive and decisive action, a willingness to take calculated risks, and strong partnerships between the public and private sectors.

Listen to our AI generated podcast discussing the document