Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to help support companies in the gaming industry that use artificial intelligence to innovate.

The UK Government has a clear plan to grow the creative industries by a further £50 billion and support another 1 million jobs by 2030. This was set out in June 2023 in the Creative Industries Sector Vision, which was accompanied by £77 million of new funding to support the sector’s growth. This is on top of a range of tax reliefs introduced or expanded since 2007 covering film, television, animation, video games, orchestras, theatres and more.

His Majesty’s Government is working across Departments to develop an approach on artificial intelligence and copyright which allows this technology and the creative industries - including video games - to grow in partnership.

The Sector Vision includes an objective to increase public and private investment in creative industries’ innovation, contributing to the UK increasing its research and development (R&D) expenditure to drive R&D-led innovation. In the 2023 Autumn Statement, Her Majesty’s Treasury also announced a DCMS-led review on public investment in R&D spending for the creative industries.

The Sector Vision is supported by £310 million in Government spending, including the following support for AI innovation across the creative industries, including video games:

• £76.5 million CoSTAR programme - an infrastructure network for world-class R&D in screen and performance technology. The new national network of five CoSTAR Labs includes the Realtime Lab in Dundee which will bring together local video games development expertise with academic expertise in R&D and AI at Abertay University and the University of Edinburgh.

• £50 million Creative Clusters programme - joining up academics with business in the creative sector to drive innovation and research to improve growth.

• £30 million Creative Catalyst programme - delivering small scale innovation funding to creative businesses.

In the UK Innovation Strategy the creative industries, including video games, are identified as critical to the government’s ambition to make the UK a global hub for innovation, engaging in innovation at a higher rate than other sectors and more productive than the UK average. Innovate UK has funded £100m through the BridgeAI programme, helping businesses in priority sectors, including the creative industries, to harness the power of AI and unlock their full potential.