Shifting the UK’s AI Focus: Labour’s Ambitious AI Action Plan

Labour starts the year strong with the publication of its AI Opportunities Action Plan. It presents a bold vision for leveraging AI to drive economic growth and improve public services. Labour’s plan prioritises securing sovereign AI capabilities for the UK’s economic future and is a clear supportive signal to the UK tech sector. This marks a policy shift away from AI security towards economic growth as a guiding principle of AI policy. While the focus on investing in infrastructure such as computing power and a National Data Library is welcome, this vision comes with significant challenges, particularly in terms of addressing the energy demands of AI infrastructure, providing sufficient funding to back these plans, and the fierce international competition for top talent. 

AI Technologies to Boost Economic Growth and Public Services

The Action Plan underscores AI’s potential as a transformative force for the UK’s economy, fostering sovereign AI capabilities and promoting adoption across sectors. These suggestions come at a time of economic challenge for the UK, where public services with limited budgets are struggling to provide high-quality services. It is a bold response to demographic pressures and significant budget deficits that sets out an ambitious vision for the UK’s adoption and advancement of AI technologies.

The report posits that AI can reduce NHS waiting times by automating appointment rescheduling and improve education through generating lesson plans for teachers, allowing them to spend more time addressing student needs. Additionally, it suggests AI will streamline processes such as identifying potholes and optimising planning applications.

Keir Starmer’s vision of using AI to cut NHS waiting times and personalise education highlights exciting possibilities, but ignores the fundamental reality that public services need foundational investment, resources, staff and infrastructure to succeed. AI can identify potholes or optimise administrative processes, but funding and skilled labour remain essential to resolving these issues. The claim that AI will make public services ‘feel more human‘ raises the question: wouldn’t direct investment in frontline staff achieve the same result? 

While the government’s AI focus is commendable, it risks being perceived as a technological shortcut to systemic problems that require structural reform, as pointed out by Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, at the Labour Party Conference 2024. With Labour’s plans for reform of the health service to include ‘from hospital to community’ and ‘from sickness to prevention’ alongside these bold AI opportunities, there remains hope that the necessary structural reform will occur. Labour’s optimism about job creation through AI is evident, but care should be taken that adoption of automation and AI, which can often disrupt traditional industries, is conducted alongside a plan to reskill displaced workers and to develop a skills pipeline for these AI-driven roles.

Investing in UK Infrastructure 

The Plan’s focus on infrastructure, such as sovereign computing power, a National Data Library and ‘AI Growth Zones’, demonstrates a clear commitment to building a thriving AI ecosystem. These initiatives aim to catalyse innovation, attract talent, and rejuvenate regional economies. Yet substantial hurdles remain. 

AI’s energy demands are underexplored in a context where the UK faces some of the world’s highest industrial energy costs. The sustainability of data centres, a linchpin of AI infrastructure, from an energy perspective needs urgent attention to ensure cost-effectiveness and environmental responsibility. The report proposes creating ‘AI Growth Zones’ powered by clean energy, leveraging energy-efficient hardware and forming international partnerships for sustainable computational access. The newly established AI Energy Council could be well suited to tackling some of these challenges, such as the UK’s high energy costs and ensuring the long-term sustainability of energy-intensive data centres, addressing some critical environmental considerations for this strategy. 

Additionally, the success of initiatives like the National Data Library will depend on equitable access. Start-ups and spin-outs, key drivers of innovation, must not be sidelined. Questions also remain unanswered on what data is to be included in the library and how will this data be used to train AI models of the future. What do the security considerations of such a library and its data governance requirements look like? 

Finally, the Plan’s execution will depend on how well the government meets the persistent challenge of developing AI talent. It will be interesting to see how the high-level recommendations on skills development turn into concrete solutions for training, attracting and retaining talent amid fierce global competition. 

These strategic infrastructure investments represent an interesting change in direction given Labour’s initial move on entering government to cancel the Exascale computer project, an Edinburgh-based supercomputer, framed as a necessary fiscal decision in the name of economic stability. This cancellation came against a backdrop of other reductions in funding in the AI research space. 

Priority Shift Away from Safety and Security

The Action Plan marks a significant shift in UK policy. Safety and security, key priority areas for the Sunak government, now no longer feature prominently in Labour’s plan. This marks a significant break with previous policy that had built up the UK’s international reputation as a leader on AI safety, for example through the November 2023 AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park and by introducing the AI Safety Institute.

While the new Labour strategy does not directly abolish any of the UK’s safety efforts, and indeed confirms the importance of the AI Safety Institute and the Alan Turing Institute, it does feed into a new narrative prioritising UK economic growth and sovereign capabilities. The race for supremacy in disruptive technologies is fierce, and no country can be world-leading across the board. Faced with the decision of whether to double down on existing strengths or improve current weaknesses, Labour has chosen the latter. The challenge will be improving UK public services and enhancing economic growth while not losing sight of the valuable progress the Sunak government made in establishing the UK as a technology convener and leader on AI safety research and standard-setting. 

Personal Triumph for Matt Clifford

Labour’s plan is also a personal success for AI adviser Matt Clifford. It is overwhelmingly based on recommendations Clifford, marking a significant success for the venture capitalist. Clifford is the government’s AI advisor, a tech entrepreneur and chair of ARIA, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency. Crucially, he enjoys a good reputation in UK business – especially the AI start-up community – which has welcomed his plans. 

Perceived as a champion of UK tech start-ups, Clifford gives credibility to Labour’s business-friendly ambitions. However, his influence is not uncontroversial. His assertion of considerable power without holding an elected position or being a civil servant has resulted in significant criticism that he is too influential in Whitehall. While Clifford’s role underlines the importance of key individuals in driving UK success in adopting and developing disruptive technologies, being transparent about their influence and motivations is critical to retain credibility for the government’s mission. Clifford is now also the prime minister’s AI Opportunities Adviser.

New Energy for the UK’s Aim of Becoming an AI Superpower 

Labour’s new action plan and the strong supporting message sent by Prime Minister Keir Starmer brings fresh impetus to the UK’s aim of becoming an AI superpower – an aim shared between the previous Conservative and now the Labour government. It also signals strong support for the UK tech sector more broadly. 

More detailed plans, for example on funding details for computing power, will reveal whether the UK government can back up its ambitions. The action plan also remains light-touch on national security concerns beyond promising deep collaboration with the national security community. Finally, how the government tackles key challenges and risks when it comes to advancing AI technologies in the UK, including regulatory questions and the critical need for skilled labour, will be decisive. Only when they are as good at identifying solutions to challenges as they are at identifying opportunities will Starmer and his AI advisers come closer to making the UK an AI superpower. 

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