Keir Starmer announced plans to “unleash AI” across the UK and to bring a decade of “national renewal.” Accompanied by the release of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the government details plans for growth through the creation of “AI Growth Zones” that support British-born tech enterprises.
The plan details the government’s commitment to increasing the capacity of AI research by at least 20 times by 2030 through building new data centres. The creation of a large-scale data centre in Wales is projected to create over 11,500 jobs.
Finlay Wilson, an MSc Artificial Intelligence student acknowledges the “extensive benefits” these data centres will bring to those employed within them. However, he also expressed his concerns over the energy expenditure from running these large databases, worrying that they will “place an even greater stress on an already stretched national grid”. The government also announced plans to fully embrace AI through investing in building a new supercomputer, despite withdrawing £800 million of funding for a supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh in August 2024.
In a world of fierce competition with the US and China currently leading the field, Starmer emphasised that the UK cannot “let opportunities slip through its fingers” and stressed the need to overcome “blockers” who have stopped growth in this sector. Meanwhile, Trump has recently announced plans to invest $500 billion in new AI infrastructure, as well as establishing Stargate, a company dedicated to growing AI in the US.
The government emphasised that investing in AI will make Britain a world leader in the sector, leading to more jobs and investment. It highlights the numerous benefits of AI such as helping civil servants to spend less time doing admin, making the NHS more efficient and using AI to improve road safety.
Despite AI rollout’s potential benefits, the technology poses major questions over its safety and reliability. AI systems are still known to “hallucinate” by making things up as well as perpetuate biases against groups of people. University graduates may also find it increasingly difficult to set themselves out in a labour market where cognitive jobs in fields such as finance and banking are increasingly taken by AI. A study conducted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change suggests that the structural changes in the labour market brought by AI could raise unemployment by up to 180,000 by 2030.
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