Opening access to NHS (National Health Service) and other public data is part of plans to position the United Kingdom as a global leader in the AI space. Ministers have announced that a multibillion-pound investment in the European major’s computing capability will “mainline” artificial intelligence, despite significant public concern about the technology’s potential impacts.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will introduce a comprehensive action plan to use AI for everything from identifying potholes to freeing up teachers to educate, to double the amount of AI computer capacity under public control by 2030.
To support the growth of AI companies, the government has proposed a potentially controversial plan to open up public data. Under this proposal, “researchers and innovators” would be granted access to anonymised NHS data to help train their AI models.
According to the government, “strong privacy-preserving safeguards” would be in place, and private corporations would never control the data.
Ministers think AI can help address Britain’s weak economic development and provide a boost to the economy of up to £470 billion over the next ten years, based on its own projections.
The action plan marks a change in approach from the UK government, which has previously concentrated on addressing the most pressing “frontier” risks from AI, such as those related to bioweapons, cybersecurity, and disinformation.
Starmer asserts that the AI industry requires support from the government, and tech firms such as Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI have commended the initiative. The directive to “actively support innovation” will put regulators at odds with those who think their main responsibility should be to safeguard the public.
Experts advised caution regarding AI’s impact on society, employment, and the environment. Recent government research revealed that the public most frequently associates three terms with artificial intelligence: “robot,” “scary,” and “worried.”
To fuel the energy-hungry technologies, the British PM also wants to speed up investment in new small nuclear reactors. The Post Office issue was mentioned by Susie Alegre, a lawyer who focuses on technology and human rights, “as a reminder of the dangers of putting too much faith in technology without the resources for effective accountability.”
Starmer has directed all members of his cabinet to prioritise the adoption of AI. It has the power to change working people’s lives in a variety of ways, from teachers customising lessons to helping small businesses with their bookkeeping to expediting planning applications.
However, the AI sector requires a supportive government that won’t stand by and watch as chances pass them by. According to Stanford University rankings, the United States currently leads the world in AI, followed by China in second place and the UK in third.
An area of Oxfordshire close to the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham headquarters will be the first AI growth zone under the 50-point AI action plan.
As the Starmer government looks to promote Britain as a destination where AI innovators feel they can establish trillion-pound enterprises, it will have expedited planning rules for data centres. In as-yet-unnamed “de-industrialised areas of the country with access to power,” further zones will be established.
Multibillion-pound contracts will build the new public “compute” capacity—the microchips, CPUs, memory, and cabling that physically enable AI. The government claims that the new “supercomputer” will have enough AI capabilities to play chess with itself half a million times per second.
The Ada Lovelace Institute warned that implementing AI in the public sector “will have real-world impacts on people” and demanded “a roadmap for addressing broader AI harms.”
The research institute’s head, Gaia Marcus, stated that in order to preserve public confidence, it was interested in learning how Whitehall will “implement these systems safely as they move at pace.”
To “support AI research and innovation,” the government announced plans to compile data from the public sector into a new National Data Library. Despite pledging to conduct the process “responsibly, securely, and ethically,” the government did not specify which data would be accessible to private corporations.
Almost six months ago, Peter Kyle, the UK’s secretary of state for science, technology, and innovation, hired British tech investor Matt Clifford to create the AI prospects action plan. The government at the time stated that if AI could boost labour efficiency, the economy may see a 1.5% annual productivity boost.
However, there are also concerns that it can result in mass unemployment, especially in professional fields like finance, law, and business management that need more secretarial work.
To boost investment in energy sources like small modular nuclear reactors and renewables, which are being pioneered to power energy-hungry AI systems, Kyle and Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, will head a new AI energy council. Campaigners around the world have expressed worries about the technology’s safety and the possibility that it could produce more radioactive waste.
According to The Guardian, taxpayers will have to pay billions of pounds over the next five years for the entire increase in computer capability. The 2025 spending review is expected to provide more financial details. This investment is distinct from the £14 billion that private firms have indicated they will invest in building massive data centres in locations such as Loughton, Essex, and on the site of a former car engine plant in South Wales.
The announcement follows rumours that Finance Secretary Rachel Reeves was thinking of making significant changes to public services to aid in the government’s financial recovery. She has given his cabinet colleagues strict instructions to identify areas where they can save money.
Investment is necessary to shape a successful AI future, yet in the six months before this plan was unveiled, Labour reduced funding for AI research and Britain’s first next-generation supercomputer by £1.3 billion while enacting a national insurance jobs tax that will cost digital businesses £1.66 billion.
Experts believe that access to cloud computing may become as crucial to the UK’s economy, society, and security as access to the internet, electricity, or oil and gas. This is why there is a drive to expand the country’s public AI hardware capacity.
According to a paper by the Demos and UK Day One think tanks, “losing access to dependable computers could be catastrophic, akin to the impact losing national broadband or electrical infrastructures would have today. It is a matter of economic and national security.”
A small number of companies supply the majority of cloud computing globally, which increases the need to develop “sovereign” capacity under state control.
Britain’s AI ambitions signal a new era of innovation, but balancing economic opportunity with ethical safeguards and public trust will be crucial as the government opens access to data, scales infrastructure, and positions the UK as a global AI leader.