Nadine Dorries – 2021 Statement on the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy

The statement made by Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 22 September 2021.

I am pleased to lay before the House the UK’s first national artificial intelligence strategy, which represents a step change in the Government approach to this transformative technology.

The UK is already a world leader in Al. From trailblazing pioneers like Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace to UK-based Al companies such as DeepMind and Benevolent Al, the UK leads the world in the fundamental research, industrial application and commercialisation of the technology.

The challenge now for the UK is to fully unlock the power of Al and data-driven technologies, to build on our early leadership and legacy, and to look forward to the opportunities of this coming decade. This strategy outlines our vision for how the UK can maintain and build on its position as other countries also race to deliver their own economic and technological transformations. This will be achieved through three pillars:

Investing in the needs of the ecosystem to see more people working with Al, more access to data and compute resources to train and deliver Al systems, and access to finance and customers to grow sectors;

Supporting the diffusion of Al across the whole economy to ensure all regions, nations, businesses and sectors can benefit from Al; and

Developing a pro-innovation regulatory and governance framework that protects the public.

Al will be central to how we drive growth and enrich lives, and the vision set out in the strategy will help us achieve both of those vital goals.

The Office for Artificial Intelligence—a joint unit of DCMS and BEIS—will publish an execution and monitoring plan to track the success of the strategy and the wider impact of Al on our economy, society and Government.

A version of the national Al strategy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.