The UK’s AI Action Plan: A Promising Initiative Marred by FlawsThe UK’s AI Action Plan: A Promising Initiative Marred by Flaws

The UK government’s highly ambitious AI Opportunities Action Plan aims to harness AI productivity gains to boost the UK economy, and to make the country a magnet for AI investment and talent, and ultimately, a global leader in AI innovation.

The formulation of a national AI strategy for the UK is a welcome development, and there are many commendable elements in the AI Action Plan. It is comprehensive (backed by 50 recommendations) and spans the public and private sectors, AI regulation, AI data needs, compute infrastructure and energy requirements, and the AI skills gap.

Coordinating an industrial AI and regulatory strategy of this magnitude is a massive challenge in terms of management, execution, and funding, and is a long game that will outlive any single government.

Moreover, aspects of the AI Action Plan are contentious and/or not always well thought through, notably: plans to unlock public data for AI training, the environmental implications of rapid data center expansion, risks that could arise from proposed measures to make AI regulations pro-innovation, no details of how the government will finance its plan beyond private investment, and how the drive for national AI sovereignty sits with private sector investment and control.

Related:What the New UK Government Means for the Country’s Data Center Sector

Omdia interrogates these issues in a comprehensive report, but to kickstart the discussion, this blog focuses on unpacking and analyzing selected elements of the AI Action Plan, with an emphasis on responsible AI.

AI Challenges

AI is a transformative technology that can deliver tangible benefits across multiple industries and business functions.

Omdia’s 2024 AI Enterprise Market Maturity survey points to AI delivering Return on Investment (ROI) across all desired business outcomes from AI projects. For example, 21% of respondents report improvements in efficiency/automation.

The UK government wants to attain benefits of this kind at a national level and uses bullish projections to suggest that AI could bring economic benefits to the country worth on average £47 billion annually over the next decade. However, the government gives the impression that AI is a magic bullet that can fix the country’s struggling economy and turbo-charge growth. AI can help but it is not a panacea…

Keep reading this article in the Omdia blog