The Government has set out a new AI action plan to help the public sector spend less time on admin and more on delivering services.
The plan, called the AI opportunities action plan, has three main ‘pillars’: to lay the foundations for AI to flourish in the UK, to boost adoption across public and private sectors, and to keep the UK ahead of ‘the pack’.
It comes as three tech companies have pledged £14bn of investment and 13,250 jobs in the UK to help build the AI infrastructure needed. These companies are Vantage Data Centres, Nscale and Kyndryl.
It follows the action plan created by AI adviser Matt Clifford last year. He came back with 50 recommendations, all of which are now being implemented.
These include:
- Plans to ‘forge new AI growth zones’ to build more AI infrastructure,
- Creating a new national data library to ‘unlock the value’ of public data,
- Set out an approach to AI regulation,
- And increasing the public compute capacity by twentyfold to improve processing power.
In the government response to the plan, Sir Keir said: ‘Artificial Intelligence is the defining opportunity of our generation. It is not a technology that is coming; a future revolution on the horizon. It is already here, materially changing lives – preventing illness in our NHS, creating exciting new companies in our economy, pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery in our universities.
‘It will turbocharge every mission in this government’s Plan for Change. And the potential for further innovation is vast.’
He added: ‘AI-powered scans can help doctors detect disease earlier. AI can cut NHS waiting lists by scheduling better appointments. It allows teachers to personalise their lessons to their children’s needs. It can support small businesses with their record-keeping, spot potholes more quickly, and help speed up planning applications. Indeed, right across our public services, it offers frontline staff the precious gift of time.’
Earlier this year, the government pledged to develop a digital platform to share information between NHS and care staff.
