By Andrew MacAskill and Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted to make the UK an artificial intelligence “superpower”, promising to take a pro-innovation approach to regulation, make public data available to researchers and create zones for data centres.
Starmer, whose Labour government is expected to have little choice but to cut spending after borrowing costs jumped, said he wanted to put AI at the heart of his ambition to grow the economy.
The government says the technology could increase productivity by 1.5% a year, worth an extra 47 billion pounds ($57 billion), annually over a decade.
“Britain will be one of the great AI superpowers,” he said on Monday at University College London, noting that the country was already the European leader for AI investment.
“We’re going to make the breakthroughs, we’re going to create the wealth, and we’re going to make AI work for everyone in our country.”
Countries across the world are competing to become AI hubs, while balancing the push for growth with the need for some restrictions on the technology.
The world’s sixth-largest economy, Britain is only behind the United States and China, when measured by indicators such as AI investment and patents, according to Stanford University.
Starmer said Britain would chart a “pro-growth and pro-innovation” course on regulation.
“I know there are different approaches around the world but we are now in control of our regulatory regime so we will go our own way on this,” he said, referring to Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020.
“We will test and understand AI before we regulate it to make sure that when we do it, it’s proportionate and grounded.”
Britain would put public data, such as information from its state health service, into a “National Data Library”, where it would be accessible to researchers subject to trusted copyright rules, he said.
The government would also adopt all the 50 recommendations set out in the report “AI Opportunities Action Plan” by venture capitalist Matt Clifford, Starmer said.
This includes making it easier to build data centres by accelerating planning permission and giving them energy connections. The first such centre will be built in Culham, Oxfordshire, home to Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority.
Britain’s economy badly needs fresh momentum after Labour government’s highest tax-raising budget since 1993 has dented business confidence and the Bank of England estimated last month that the economy did not grow in the last quarter.
Starmer said AI had the power to transform the lives of people, including speeding up planning consultations, helping small businesses, and reducing bureaucratic burdens for doctors and teachers.
($1 = 0.8194 pounds)
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Paul Sandle; Editing by David Holmes and Tomasz Janowski)
