Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the UK’s performance, relative to global peers, in translating AI innovation into commercial and economic outcomes; and what steps they are taking to support competitiveness, scale-up growth and technology adoption in this area.

We have a strong and globally competitive AI ecosystem, and we are focused on ensuring that this strength translates into commercial success, productivity gains and public benefit.

We have established the Sovereign AI Unit, backed by up to £500 million, to invest in and support high-growth UK AI companies. The Government will encourage innovation by acting as a first customer for promising UK start-ups that are building high-quality AI hardware products through an Advance Market Commitment of up £100 million. We are also strengthening the UK’s scale-up finance ecosystem more broadly, including increasing the capitalisation of the National Wealth Fund to £27.8 billion and scaling up the British Business Bank to £25.6 billion, with expanded investment into growth-stage funds.

We are committed to ensuring the UK is the leading adopter of AI in the G7, and the Government will look at how regulation, data and access to finance can support adoption including by working closely with sectoral AI Champions to identify new solutions. DSIT will track the UK's progress by using national and international adoption surveys, applying adjustments where needed to improve cross-country comparability.