I speak to you having just wrapped up what was, in my department, one of the biggest weeks of the year.
It was the outcome of the Spending Review.
The Data Bill, after months, passed into law. And it was also London Tech Week.
If you haven’t been before, think of it like Coachella. But swap Lady Gaga for tech founders in leather jackets, blue jeans and Britney mics.
This was my 2nd Tech Week, but this year felt different.
Not just because it was my first as Tech Secretary.
But because the atmosphere had changed.
The optimism was more tangible. The energy more urgent.
The atmosphere in Olympia more excited and exciting.
Nowhere was that excitement more obvious than when it came to securing the UK’s stake in a future shaped by AI.
You had the Prime Minister announcing a £1 billion investment, to make our computing power 20x greater by 2030.
You had buzz from international investors. Who have poured £45 billion into AI here since July.
And you had Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, declaring that the UK had reached a ‘Goldilocks’ moment: When our combination of world-class universities, AI start-ups and sheer ambition makes Britain ‘Just right’ as an investment destination.
It won’t surprise you to know that I agree.
We will turn our country into an AI superpower. But our ambition alone won’t define us.
What will define us is how we achieve that ambition. Last week, I was reminded of the question in my mind the day I came into office:
How do we shape the future of AI in a way that is progressive? In a way that leaves no one behind?
Because we tend to talk about AI as an unstoppable force.
But progress is never inevitable. It can be halted in its tracks.
Fourteen years of slow or no growth, declining family incomes and a decaying public realm prove that. How change happens – and who benefits – is up to us.
We have agency over what the age of AI looks like.
It could be a Wild West Story, where the strongest and boldest make most – and the rest make do.
Or it could be a story about opportunity and security. Where we all benefit from the scope and scale, health and wealth of the progressive change it brings.
The way I see it, we can use our agency to shape 3 things:
Let me take each in turn.
First, where we build.
Where we build
Technology has always promised to be the great equaliser.
But that promise has proved elusive. For decades, the way we have invested in technology has been a tale of 2 Britains:
Growth concentrated in the wealthiest parts of our country.
With communities elsewhere left dependent on traditional industries.
This time, we can do things differently.
The unique geography of AI turns our country’s economic map on its head.
The places that languished in the wake of 1980s de-industrialisation make prime locations for AI infrastructure. Because they’re often the only places that can supply enough power. And enough space to exploit it.
These are the areas we’ll be looking to prioritise as we create AI Growth Zones: Hotspots of infrastructure that will crowd in private investment.
When we asked communities to put themselves forward, over 200 places enthusiastically responded. The hunger for AI is not just coming from government and big businesses. But from across Britain.
For the places that qualify, the results will be transformative. Because I’m not talking about a data centre as an anonymous black box by the side of the motorway. An economic island cut off from the surrounding area, with very few jobs and opportunities for working people.
But as a hub that attracts AI start-ups and scale-ups.
Creates new campuses for training and knowledge-transfer.
And starts a ripple effect of good, future-proofed jobs, with all the economic security that brings.
Where the excess heat from that data centre is not wasted. But used to power local homes, boost agricultural production, warm community swimming pools.
For that vision to work, local people must be at the core.
That takes me to who does the building.
Who does the building
A progressive approach to AI is impossible without a population with the skills to be part of it.
We have to equip people with what they need to seize the extraordinary opportunities this technology brings.
A few days ago, the Prime Minister kick-started a national AI skills drive. It will upskill people at every age, every stage of education, across the country.
From new funding for TechFirst, giving students in every secondary school in Britain the chance to start a career in tech. To a partnership with industry, equipping 7.5 million UK workers with essential AI skills by 2030.
These are exciting, decent jobs in the industries of tomorrow, for Britain’s prosperous communities of the future. If we can show people that, we will persuade them that it pays to be shapers of AI.
I want to show them that it pays to be consumers of it, too.
That takes us to what we build.
What we build
We sometimes talk about AI in a way that’s removed from real life.
Abstract headlines about ‘growth’ or ‘revolution’ don’t give people much to hold on to.
I want to show people that AI isn’t just an idea for the newsroom or the boardroom. But a reality in the classroom, the doctor’s office, the operating theatre. Because across the UK, there are researchers and companies using AI for the public good.
Last week, I announced a project called OpenBind.
At the Harwell Science Campus in Oxford, our best scientists will come together. To build the world’s biggest set of data on how drugs interact with the proteins in our bodies. Better data means better AI models. Models that can predict which compounds will turn into cures. As Demis Hassabis said himself, this is a brilliant initiative for UK science.
Breakthroughs we make here could cut the cost of developing treatments by up to £100 billion. And see us not just treating disease. But beating it for good.
I began by arguing that the state has agency over how we build AI.
Perhaps the ultimate way to use it is by not only by backing others who build it. But by building it ourselves. With a smarter, smaller state that works better for the people we’re here to serve. Take the AI-powered chatbot we’ve built for GOV.UK.
Soon, you won’t have to trawl through 500,000 pages to apply for Universal Credit or work out your tax code. The answer will come to you. Giving people more time to do the things they like with the people they love.
It isn’t always easy to explain to people what AI means for them.
With tools like this, we don’t need to tell them.
We can let them discover the power of AI for themselves.
As we find ourselves in the ‘Goldilocks’ moment, there is no time to waste.
We have a small window to decide how this revolution will differ from those which came before.
To make sure this isn’t the same tale of 2 Britains.
By building in the places that have been left behind for too long. By giving everyone in the country the opportunity to do well, for themselves and their families, in the digital age.
And by building things that make their lives easier, healthier, happier.
The agency to do all of those things sits with us. We’ve just got to have the courage and the conviction to use it, positively and progressively.
To create opportunity and security for all.
For me, that really is the Giant Idea.