Britain must seize the opportunity to deliver an AI boom
3 min read
The best way to predict the future is to create it. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes an integral part of our world, we must ask ourselves what kind of future we want. Will it be doom and gloom for workers or a boom in growth? The decisions the UK makes in the coming months will be pivotal.
The United States and China are now in an arms race for AI supremacy. The rise of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, validates previously uncertain predictions about access to quality talent and computing power for Chinese model developers.
The UK must not be left behind. Our AI Opportunities Action Plan is the next step in rising to this challenge.
DeepSeek demonstrates that the trajectory of cost-efficient large AI models is achievable outside the US. We have the ingredients to be at the tip of this trajectory: exceptional talent from our universities, the full will of government, capital bolstered by pension reforms, planning reform, and a deep heritage of invention. The AI Opportunities Action Plan’s ambition on compute capacity and sovereign AI will provide a specific boost.
There is little to gain if we are at the tip of invention but the tail of adoption
In a world of fierce AI competition, the UK can lead on standards, using sovereign capacity to drive international co-ordination. The AI Safety Institute has already made strides in international safety dialogues. It is time to empower that institution further to keep its lead.
Developing frontier AI and setting international standards will be vital if the UK is to become an AI superpower – but the central seat of that power lies in the change we drive within our society.
It took decades from the invention of the integrated circuit to the widespread adoption of computers by the end of the 1980s. Technology showed up everywhere, but not in our growth and productivity figures.
There is little to gain if we are at the tip of invention but the tail of adoption. That is why Technology Secretary Peter Kyle’s AI adoption drive is central to the UK’s advantage. Public services – from expediting disease diagnosis to personalising education – can be at the forefront of that. The prize is not just prosperity but deeper self-confidence in our public services.
All parts of our country can power this AI revolution, with AI Growth Zones that channel our energy, our ideas and our collective effort into a national mission. The Vale of Glamorgan could power compute. Newport could support chip design. Bristol could be an AI research powerhouse. They could all be joined by fibre along the M4 corridor to power AI all the way through to London.
Data will be the lifeblood of this new industrial revolution, improving services for everyone – from the NHS to driving licences.
Energy, too, is key. The next AI revolution will need physical energy powering digital models. The new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce and the new AI Energy Council will be critical in that effort. As will the next generation of nuclear technology, including small modular reactors, built by British companies like Rolls-Royce.
AI offers a chance for many more of us, in many more parts of the country, to build a sense of national renewal and deep prosperity again. A genuinely British revolution is in sight once more.
Kanishka Narayan, Labour MP for the Vale of Glamorgan
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