The AI Opportunities Action Plan by the UK Prime Minister is backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer will release his government’s AI Opportunity Action Plan on Monday. He aims to make Britain a world leader in artificial intelligence. The UK government, in an official statement, said Starmer is throwing the full weight of Whitehall behind this industry by agreeing to take forward all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford in his game-changing AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Matt Clifford is a tech entrepreneur who was commissioned by Science Secretary Peter Kyle in July to come up with a plan to identify AI opportunities in the country.
The last major initiative proposed by the UK government was to create homegrown AI “champions” that will be at par with the American tech giants like OpenAI’s Chat-GPT.
Britain plans to create “sovereign” AI models which aren’t reliant on Silicon Valley. The government plans to leverage the AI growth zones and a newly established National Data Library to connect universities and enhance the country’s ability to create the sovereign AI models.
Building an AI company requires a large capital. However, the U.K. faces serious funding challenges in its bid to create an effective OpenAI alternative.
Several entrepreneurs in the UK have highlighted these funding challenges that make it difficult for start-ups in the country to raise the kind of funds available to AI start-ups in the US.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan is backed by leading tech firms, which are said to have committed £14bn towards various projects.
Vantage Data Centres plans to invest over £12bn in data centres across the UK and is aiming to build one of Europe’s largest data centre campuses in Wales. Similarly, Kyndryl which is world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider and a leading IT consultancy will assist the Starmer government with rolling out AI across the country. It has announced plans to create up to 1,000 AI-related jobs in Liverpool over the next three years.
One of the UK’s leading AI companies, Nscale has announced a $2.5bn investment to support the UK’s data centre infrastructure over the next three years. They have also signed a contract to build the largest UK sovereign AI data centre by 2026.