What does the AI Opportunities Action Plan offer businesses?

by Harry Sidnell on 21 Jan 2025

This blog identifies some of the key recommendations made in each of the recently published AI Opportunities Action Plan’s sections (investing in the foundations of AI, pushing on cross-economy AI adoption, and securing the UK’s future with homegrown AI), highlighting those which offer the most promise to AI developers or adopters. It will then consider how Inline is well-positioned to leverage its tech expertise and relations with government to assist businesses in realising their AI ambitions.

Introduction

The UK Government has entered the new year with a determination to make good its manifesto promise to develop the domestic AI sector. Following confirmation that 2025 will see the introduction of a Bill to regulate the largest AI developers, the AI Opportunities Action Plan (herein, ‘the Plan’) commissioned by the Government in July 2024, was published on 13 January. Written by Matt Clifford, now the Prime Minister’s AI Opportunities Adviser, the report makes 50 recommendations for the UK to become a leader in developing and deploying AI. However, despite much excitement about the big-picture implications of a comprehensive AI strategy, less attention has been paid to the opportunities the Plan offers to businesses, from those who are already incorporating AI into their products to those who are considering bringing innovative new technologies to the market.

Investing in the Foundations of AI

The Plan’s first recommendations focus on securing the necessary quantity of computational power (‘compute’) required to power AI data centres. This compute does not need to be entirely state-owned or operated but will instead consist of compute owned or allocated by the public sector; domestic compute that is based within the UK but privately owned/operated; and international compute, to be accessed by ‘reciprocal arrangements with like-minded partners.’ To achieve these advances in compute, the Action Plan recommends that the government should:

  • Set out, within six months, a long-term plan for the UK’s AI infrastructure needs.
  • Establish AI ‘growth zones’ (AIGZs): areas across the country that will ‘speed up planning approvals for the rapid building of data centres, giving them better access to the energy grid.’ This recommendation could be implemented through creating a ‘bespoke planning use-class’ for data centres, and ‘considering the case for AI data centres to be eligible for relevant relief schemes that incentivise private sector investment.’

The Plan then moves on to discuss the need to enable ‘safe and trusted AI development and adoption through regulation, safety and assurance’. It argues that effective regulation and trusted assurance models are vital in encouraging AI uptake without unduly stifling growth, whilst still protecting citizens from the potential negative implications of AI technologies. To this end, the Plan makes the following recommendations:

  • That the Government should reform the UK text and data mining regime so that it is ‘at least as competitive’ as the EU’s. The Plan argues that the current ‘uncertainty around intellectual property is hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI’.
  • That regulators should focus on accelerating AI in ‘priority sectors’ and facilitate the rollout of AI in sectors of ‘high-growth potential’ by implementing regulatory sandboxes.
  • That regulators should be required to report annually on how they have enabled AI-driven innovation and growth in their sector(s). The Plan further posits that, if evidence suggests regulators are not promoting innovation at the desired scale or pace, the Government could establish a dedicated AI regulator with a greater tolerance for risk, and the ability to overrule sector-specific regulators on matters within its remit.

Pushing on cross-economy AI adoption

The next batch of recommendations focus on how the Government should ensure AI technologies are able to scale up, once the adequate technological and regulatory foundations have been laid. The Plan advocates for a ‘scan, pilot, scale’ approach, consisting of three stages:

  • The ‘scan’ stage should focus on building a ‘deep and continually updated understanding of AI capabilities’. This should be supported by bilateral partnerships with AI vendors and startups to ‘anticipate future AI developments and signal public sector demand.’
  • The ‘pilot’ stage should focus on the rapid development of prototype AI technologies. This will require developing a framework for how to source AI, which should be ‘fast’ and ‘multi-stage[d]’ to enable fast access to small-scale funding for AI pilots.
  • The ‘scale’ stage should facilitate the wide-scale deployment of successful technologies that have been developed in the scan and pilot stages. This will require Government support for a ‘select number of proven AI pilots’, to enable them to operate on a national scale.

Securing the UK’s future with homegrown AI

The final section of the Plan considers how government can continue to develop and nurture a world-leading AI market, as frontier AI models continue to require more compute power, and innovators continue to devise new applications for AI technologies. The Plan emphasises the need to ensure that research and development of frontier AI takes place in the UK, and that the associated economic and market-driving opportunities of homegrown AI are fully realised. To this end, the Plan makes its final recommendation, that the Government should create a new unit, ‘UK Sovereign AI’ equipped ‘with the power to partner with the private sector to deliver the clear mandate of maximising the UK’s state in frontier AI.’ To facilitate the successful operation of such a unit, the Plan urges Innovate UK to make AI a priority, and to support the unit through the funding it provides to promising startups.

Opportunities for business

It is not surprising, given that the Plan is effectively an address to the Government, that most of its recommendations focus on steps to be taken by government, regulators or the wider public sector to fulfil its ambitions. However, despite the absence of a definitive vision on how businesses should take advantage of the changing AI landscape, the emphasis on a healthy public-private sector relationship as a force to achieve the Plan’s targets sets down a challenge to ambitious firms.

The salient opportunity for businesses to benefit from the Government’s AI ambitions lies in the promise of state-backed support for innovative startups. The Plan clearly envisages a comprehensive support network to incubate new AI technologies, ranging from the chance to work with AI-friendly regulators to the prospect of financial and technical support from Innovate UK and UK Sovereign AI, as part of the pilot and scale stages of achieving cross-economy AI integration. This support network will hopefully be accessible to those in the early stages of research and development, through to those with a working prototype ready to demonstrate to potential investors. Notable amongst the recommendations directed at regulators is the encouragement to establish regulatory sandboxes for assessing the advantages and risks of emerging AI technologies.

Alternatively, for businesses whose technologies are still in the research stage, or those who merely wish to adopt AI developed by third parties, it is likely that delivery of various measures intended to fulfil the recommendations of the Plan will be informed by public consultation. Indeed, the UK Intellectual Property Office has already launched a consultation on the aforementioned text and data-mining regime, which the Plan recommends should be reformed to remove hindrances to innovation. Therefore, any business with views on how government should ensure the effective development, adoption or governance of AI should consider how it can best present an effective case should any of the bodies tasked with implementing the Plan announce relevant consultations.

Why Inline Policy?

Inline Policy has engaged with Innovate UK’s accelerators and is well-placed to help clients through all stages of a product’s development lifecycle. This includes Inline’s long expertise connecting clients with decision-makers and helping clients at every stage of their responses to public consultations, especially important for businesses with products that are ready for the market. For advocacy efforts outside the scope of public consultations—such as the Plan’s recommendations for the establishment of local AIGZs, especially in former industrial areas, to be decided in collaboration with the National Energy System Operator—Inline similarly has the right know-how.

Whilst government looks to lay the groundwork for a thriving UK AI market, the AI Opportunities Action Plan clearly envisions that private enterprise will eventually bring the country over the line in delivering what might be called its ultimate ambition: making the UK an ‘AI maker’ rather than an ‘AI taker’. With some of the Plan’s recommendations timetabled for rollout as soon as spring 2025, it is clear that, even if not all targets are achieved, the Government is banking on AI as a driver of growth. Businesses should quickly consider whether they wish to work in lockstep or are content to take a back seat as others ‘move fast and break things’. Whatever strategy you decide, Inline can help in navigating and influencing a rapidly evolving AI policy landscape.

Topics: UK politics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Innovation policy, Technology, Digitaleconomy, Politics, techpolicy, digital policy

Harry Sidnell

Written by Harry Sidnell

Harry provides policy analysis, monitoring and advice to tech clients from Inline’s London office. Before joining Inline, he worked in the analytical department of a major outsourced insurance buyer and as a legal researcher with the Gatehouse Chambers Construction Team. Harry holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of York.

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