Britain wants you to know that even as it stumbles towards Brexit, it's racing ahead on one of the most important technological innovations of our time - artificial intelligence.
The U.K. government announced that it had put together “an AI deal worth more than £1 billion” that includes public and private funding.
The money is going towards research and grants, with around £145 million from two foreign venture capital firms going into British, emerging-tech startups. It comes a couple of weeks after France announced its own commitment to AI.
British government officials had been hoping to involve a big name in artificial intelligence like Google, according to one senior source, but that company was noticeably absent from the announcement.
IBM and Microsoft, however, did help the government carry out its independent review of the AI industry, which spokespeople say "helped inform the policies and new commitments" in the deal.
Specifics on how the money is being spent are still vague, and sources that Forbes reached out to couldn’t provide a detailed breakdown.
But startups and researchers working in artificial intelligence aren’t in desperate need of funds in any case -- it’s already flooding in from private sources.
Venture funding of artificial intelligence and machine learning doubled to $12 billion in 2017, according to KPMG.
In many ways this is about image.
The government under Theresa May is saying that it won’t shy away from a technology that many fear will blow a gaping hole in the job market, but will rather lead from the front.
While governments traditionally struggle to keep up with new advancements in tech, specialists in AI say this is a positive move.
One senior executive at a British AI startup said moves like this to foster cooperation between government and the private sector would benefit the industry.
In practice, the so-called sector deal is the result of government officials asking investment funds and academia to help develop AI in the UK with money or assets.
Officials succeeded in getting the University of Cambridge, for instance, to agree to open a $15 million supercomputer and make it available to businesses.
And when the UK embassy in Tokyo, Japan spotted an opportunity for venture capital firm Global Brain to invest in British AI startups, the country’s trade commissioners in Japan reached out and pitched the idea, says Antony Philipson, UK trade commissioner for North America.
“They’re trying to put all of these moving pieces in one place,” he told Forbes. “This is where we are, and where we will go in the next five years.” Britain, according to the government’s press release, is building its “status as an AI research hotspot.”
In sum, the deal encompasses £950 million of support for the nebulous sector of the technology market that includes artificial intelligence, data analytics and robotics.
Some £600 million of that is newly-allocated funding from the state and private sector, according to a government spokesman while £340 million comes from existing commitments like the £9 million that Britain promised last November to spend on a Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.
Among the deal’s highlights:
- The government says it will train 8,000 specialist computer science teachers.
- It will fund 1,000 PhD’s in artificial intelligence by 2025.
- Japanese venture firm Global Brain will spend £35 million in British deep-tech startups
- Canadian VC firm Chrysalix is also setting up its European office in the UK and spending £110 million in AI and robotics here.
- London based Tech-City UK, a quasi-government trade body representing the tech sector here, will rebrand as Tech Nation and open a network of regional incubators across the country, according to Philipson.
- Rolls-Royce will help lead a research program into data science and AI at the Alan Turing Institute.
Britain’s announcement is part of a growing chorus from governments keen to be on the front foot of artificial intelligence.
Just a few weeks ago, France’s President Emmanuel Macron announced his own version of an AI sector deal: an investment of $1.5 billion on scientific laboratories, research projects and funding for startups and companies in France working on AI.
Recently the European Commission also pledged to invest 20 billion euros into artificial intelligence by the end of 2020.
