What last week’s state visit means for UK AI

Amidst all the pomp and pageantry of last week’s US state visit to the UK, you may have missed a crucial announcement - a cross-Atlantic AI pact with major implications for the future of UK AI.

The “Tech Prosperity Deal”, negotiated between President Trump and Prime Minister Starmer, promises close collaboration between the two countries on the development of AI for use in healthcare, nuclear energy, and quantum computing projects. The UK Government boasted that the deal would lead to economic growth, security, and increased AI investment, through aligning the country with the low-regulation environment of the US.

With the announcement of the deal came pledges from leading tech companies to invest in Britain’s AI infrastructure, most notably:

• Nvidia planning to deploy 120,000 processing chips in Britain, and work with OpenAI and Microsoft to establish Britain's largest AI supercomputer.

• Microsoft promising to invest £22 billion in UK cloud and AI infrastructure development.

• Google announcing £5 billion for a new UK data centre.

The deal is designed to cement the UK as the prime AI technology partner of the US, and to ensure that it remains a relevant force in the development and adoption of AI. In this environment, the risks of businesses being left behind due to slow adoption of AI are rapidly increasing - potentially including losing access to billions of pounds of investment money.

UK businesses must ensure that they have the ability to adopt AI responsibly and efficiently to maintain their competitive advantage and remain on the cutting edge of innovation. This begins with introducing AI skills diversity at the board level. Too many modern boards lack sufficient AI expertise to keep pace with the rate of change - at L-EV8, our mission is to change this by bringing our expert knowledge to your business.

Get in touch to learn how we can help you through our AI Accelerator course, or our bespoke board-level programs.