Announced today by Matt Hancock, Culture Secretary and Business Secretary Greg Clark, the £1billion deal for AI will see leading technology companies pledging more than £300million of new private sector investment. It is the UK’s strengths in AI that the government wants to support and build on. So today, as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy, more than 50 leading businesses, universities and trade organisations have supported the development of a new AI Sector Deal between government and industry, cementing the UK’s reputation as an AI world leader now and into the future.
From the very beginning, Britain’s pioneers have led the way in artificial intelligence (AI). In the 19th century, Ada Lovelace annotated a text with the first examples of working software ever published. In the 20th century, Alan Turing, seen by many as the father of artificial intelligence, designed what was at the time the fastest and most effective computer anywhere in the world. Decades later companies across the UK are continuing Lovelace and Turing’s legacy.
Included in the announcement: By 2025, at any one time there will be at least 1,000 government-supported PhD places in AI and related disciplines. Britain will lead the way in creating ethical AI safeguards through the new Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation – the first institution of its kind anywhere in the world – along with the Ada Lovelace Institute. These join the already established private-public institutions, the Alan Turing Institute and the CSER. The deal marks the first phase of a major innovation-focused investment drive in AI through the Industrial Strategy which aims to help the UK seize the opportunity AI offers the UK. To validate the government’s major investment decision, in a recent report, Gartner predicts AI will add $1.2trillion to companies’ earnings in 2018 alone.
More information can be found in the links below:
Tech sector backs British AI industry with multimillion-pound investment
Our ambition for AI must match the Apollo programme that put man on the moon