The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has commissioned an ‘AI Action Plan’ to identify how AI can drive economic growth and “deliver better outcomes for people across the country”.

Leading the work will be Matt Clifford, Chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). According to the Government press release, he will deliver an ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ which will “identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products”. This will include, for example, evaluating the status of the UK’s compute and broader infrastructure requirements, and considering “how this infrastructure is made available for start-ups and scale-ups”. Equally, it will examine how to attract top AI talent, questions of data access, and how to increase take up of AI across all parts of the economy, in order to “drive adoption by the public and private sectors”.

The Terms of Reference for the ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ states that evidence will be sought from academic and business research, and that interviews will be conducted “across industry, academia, government, regulators and civil society” in order to devise a plan of action “for the Secretary of State to drive growth of the AI sector and consider how to support the adoption of artificial intelligence in the United Kingdom”.

Of particular interest will be considering how the UK can:

1. build an artificial intelligence sector that can scale and be competitive globally

2. adopt artificial intelligence to enhance growth and productivity, and support the delivery across government of the government’s five stated missions

3. use artificial intelligence in government to transform citizens’ experiences of interacting with the state and boosting take-up in all parts of the public sector and the wider economy

4. strengthen the enablers of artificial intelligence adoption, such as data, infrastructure, public procurement processes and policy, and regulatory reforms

It is expected that a set of recommendations will be delivered to the Secretary of State in September. In the meantime, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will establish an ‘AI Opportunities Unit” which will “bring together the knowledge and expertise to take full advantage of AI and implement recommendations from the Action Plan”.

Commenting on the announcement, Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said “We’re putting AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to boost growth and improve our public services.  Matt Clifford brings a wealth of experience and shares my ambition when it comes to realising the opportunities of AI, using it to drive growth and improve people’s lives. Together we will use AI to drive productivity and economic growth in every part of the country so we can make everyone better off.”

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