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Britain’s veins are about to be filled with AI – it’s a weird metaphor, but that’s the best the UK Government could come up with when announcing its efforts to apply AI to every part of the public sector.
The aim of the AI Opportunities Action Plan is to solve long-running problems like a shortage of NHS appointments and unfilled potholes in roads, as well as boosting the UK economy. Indeed, the government believes this AI project could reap £470 billion over the next ten years.
To achieve this, the government is encouraging more data centres to be built, including one alongside a water reserve. Any build as part of the “AI growth zones” must use clean power, though that includes support for new nuclear reactors.
The government has also apparently told regulators to be more supportive of “innovation”, which hopefully they’ll ignore in favour of keeping people safe from AI bias, data harvesting and the negative environmental impacts of this project. Regulators after all shouldn’t take sides – they’re a check on corporate and government power, not cheerleaders.
On the upside, the project backs the development of homegrown AI models, meaning we need not necessarily rely on American corporations. A good move to protect British interests while also supporting the local tech industry and academia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement that AI can drive incredible change in the country, from personalised lessons for students to helping speed up planning applications. “But the AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that won’t sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers,” he said. “In a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race.”
Starmer plans to use all that AI to rework the UK government, slash costs and “turbocharge” the transformation of the country. What does any of this actually mean?
Writing in the FT, Starmer noted that NHS waiting times can be reduced using AI: “We will use AI to cut them by filling appointments patients can no longer make and quickly rescheduling.”
Any Brit who’s accustomed to paper appointment invites through the mail will happily welcome any plan for improvement, but it’s unclear why this needs AI and can’t be managed through basic digital services. Appointment opens up, text the next person on the list. How does AI enable this?
AI, Starmer notes, can spot potholes more quickly. But what use is that if local councils can’t afford to fix them anyway? At least on this point the Labour government is coughing up more funds for fixing roads, but the problem isn’t awareness of potholes, it’s fixing them.
To be clear, Starmer notes, this isn’t about making cuts to jobs but instead allowing frontline workers the “precious gift of time” so they can do their jobs properly. “That’s the wonderful irony of AI in the public sector,” he wrote. “It provides an opportunity to make services feel more human.”
Here’s hoping that proves true.
Beyond filling the UK’s apparently unused industrial sites with data centres, the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan includes efforts to boost the compute power available to the public sector by a factor of 20. It will also establish a National Data Library, a copyright regime to protect content makers – thanks Prime Minister, but we have that already and AI developers just ignored it – and a fresh attempt at making use of NHS data for innovation.
That last one in particular is a welcome move, but only if done well and safely. The government has long struggled with how to turn the NHS’ massive data set to good use for researchers as a tool for medical research. So far, it’s failed to convince privacy activists and regular people alike that work can be done safely. Hopefully those lessons have been learned, but time will have to tell.
In the meantime, as we await AI being “mainlined into the veins” of the UK, perhaps the government’s communications department will put ChatGPT to good use by coming up with less awful metaphors.
As we were about to press Publish on this story, this comment came in from Sarfraz Ali, VP & GM EMEA at Smartsheet. He, needless to say, has skin in the AI game as Smartsheet describes itself as the AI-enhanced enterprise-grade work management platform.
“Labour’s £14bn AI investment announcement shows great ambition for UK tech infrastructure,” he wrote. “However, working with businesses across EMEA has shown me that unlocking AI’s potential isn’t just about computing power and data centres – it’s about making the technology accessible in everyday work environments.”
We’ll skip the two sentences that basically plug Smartsheet and fast forward to: “Whether it’s a small marketing agency managing campaigns or a large manufacturer coordinating supply chains, AI should enhance their existing processes, not complicate them. This investment gives us a perfect opportunity to bridge this gap.
“To translate this investment into real economic growth, we need to focus on embedding AI into everyday workflow tools. Success will come from making AI capabilities accessible to every business, regardless of size or technical expertise. When AI becomes a natural part of how teams collaborate and execute their work – that’s when we’ll see this investment drive meaningful productivity gains across the UK economy.”
