National AI strategy

Overview

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the fastest growing deep technology in the world, with huge potential to rewrite the rules of entire industries, drive substantial economic growth and transform all areas of life. The UK is a global superpower in AI and is well placed to lead the world over the next decade as a genuine research and innovation powerhouse, a hive of global talent and a progressive regulatory and business environment.

Many of the UK’s successes in AI were supported by the 2017 Industrial Strategy, which set out the government’s vision to make the UK a global centre for AI innovation. In April 2018, the government and the UK’s AI ecosystem agreed a near £1 billion AI Sector Deal to boost the UK’s global position as a leader in developing AI technologies. This new National AI Strategy builds on the UK’s strengths but also represents the start of a stepchange for AI in the UK, recognising the power of AI to increase resilience, productivity, growth and innovation across the private and public sectors.

This is how we will prepare the UK for the next ten years, and is built on three assumptions about the coming decade:

• The key drivers of progress, discovery and strategic advantage in AI are access to people, data, compute and finance – all of which face huge global competition
• AI will become mainstream in much of the economy and action will be required to ensure every sector and region of the UK benefit from this transition
• Our governance and regulatory regimes will need to keep pace with the fast-changing demands of AI, maximising growth and competition, driving UK excellence in innovation, and protecting the safety, security, choices and rights of our citizens

The UK’s National AI Strategy therefore aims to:

• Invest and plan for the long-term needs of the AI ecosystem to continue our leadership as a science and AI superpower
• Support the transition to an AI-enabled economy, capturing the benefits of innovation in the UK, and ensuring AI benefits all sectors and regions
• Ensure the UK gets the national and international governance of AI technologies right to encourage innovation, investment, and protect the public and our fundamental values

This will be best achieved through broad public trust and support, and by the involvement of the diverse talents and views of society.

This content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0

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