Britain will be reduced to a vassal state without a dedicated sovereign artificial intelligence plan, and the funding for one should be written into the defence budget, according to UKAI, the trade association for the British AI economy.
The group, which represents more than two hundred and seventy businesses, issued the warning as a Google Cloud outage hit banks, businesses and courts across the country, and called on the Chancellor to ringfence money for a sovereign AI roadmap in this week’s Budget.
Charlotte Wilson, head of enterprise at Check Point, said: “Without a dedicated Sovereign plan in place, the UK will continue to be at the mercy of overseas tech firms, subjected to damaging outages and major cyber security scares.
“Inconsistency on global governance, policies and access will be a major issue, especially with AI impacting the UK jobs market.
“Piecemeal funding announcements are tactical at best, and we need detailed strategy about how the country will build and design a new wave of AI tools to support critical national infrastructure. This should be written into the defence budget, especially with geopolitical uncertainty and hostile foreign states bombarding the country with increasingly malicious attacks.”
Tim Flagg, chief executive of UKAI, said: “The UK has some of the world’s best AI companies, yet no Sovereign AI strategy to help them thrive. The AI Opportunities Action Plan, the Sovereign AI Fund and the AI Hardware Plan are all welcome steps, but nothing joins them together. On their own, they are building blocks. Joined up as a strategy, they would be transformative.
“The stakes could not be higher. Without immediate action, Britain risks becoming a vassal state, dependent on countries that control the AI infrastructure our economy increasingly relies on. We have the entrepreneurs, the research and the talent to compete, but they are fragmented and disconnected. The Government can change that by uniting and championing British AI businesses and reforming public procurement, so that taxpayer money builds British growth and British jobs.
“Businesses are calling for action and the Government has signalled its intent, yet nothing concrete has followed. Next week’s Budget is the moment to act. We urge the Chancellor to fund a Sovereign AI strategy and secure the UK’s place as a world leader in AI, rather than leave our future in other countries’ hands.”
The defence relevance of the argument has been made by ministers themselves. The Defence Investment Plan commits up to £1.8 billion to the Digital Targeting Web over four years, and Luke Pollard told Parliament last week that £266 million has been allocated for this financial year, £352 million for 2027-28 and £1,213 million for the two years after that, with the profile still being refined in the current planning round.
UKAI will hold a Sovereign AI Summit at The Oval in London on 2 November, bringing together AI businesses, investors, policymakers and public sector buyers, and intends to produce a Sovereign AI Compact setting out proposed commitments for government and industry.
Glad to see self interest to the fore then. And why would anyone think the Uk would have an AI strategy? It has no defence strategy and Healey has shown his true colours and the truth behind his resignation letter today. Britain doesn’t have strategies, it has reviews, endlessly bloody reviews about everything.
But he said he would do the 3% by 2030 and he resigned because the Starmer government would not promise that..
To be honest I’m well happy, because I suspected that promise would not come till the spending review or get watered down.. but he’s promised it.
The shortfall from Starmer’s time will be funded through capital budget cuts on other Departments. That is exactly what Starmer promised too. There is no guarantee that will be possible, it is easy to say departments will make this saving but what tends to happen is they make cuts that don’t last which is exactly why the Civil Service just keeps growing in size over the long term. The state will just keep on growing as the population is perpetually lied to about how they should not worry nanny will come to their aid. The French politicos are even more adept at this illusion but perhaps their gravy train is heading for the buffers now. “Vive l’revolution”
Just imagine what a future US could do if the world continues down its present path, a far right corporatist government in the white house wants the UK to do something.. suddenly there is a massive denial of service event as the tec bros turn off the taps until we comply.
Let’s be very clear what happened with Ukraine with the starlink slowdown and a corporate body supporting state policy was a classic corporatist state move..and is a clear sign that is the way the US is flowing.
To be honest it’s what seems on the surface a logical move for the US as it’s under threat from a communist state that’s adapted a classic corporatist/ mercantilist state paradigm to attack its free market opponent. The problem is it will shatter its free market western Alliance hegemony, which was the cornerstone of its power.. a classic end of empire protect the core move that just infact speeds up the fall.
So yes the UK needs to notice these moves and start protecting its own core with wide ranging sovereign capabilities it must have or rejoin the core of a different empire ( the EU).