UK Dreams of Dominating World AI

The British government releases its plan for how to carve out a space for UK in the AI growth economy.

Yesterday, the UK government announced their first real growth program for the British economy. It relies solely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the instrument of driving systemic growth into the ailing British economy.

The British PM, Keir Starmer (Labour party) sets out the goal of making UK take World leadership in the currently most hyped IT growth area:

Our plan will make Britain the world leader. It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change. That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in people’s pockets, and transformed public services.

Below picture is AI-generated! This blog normally only shows real photos.

After Brexit, there have been so many setbacks for British economy that the public has lost track of many of them. To put it mildly, most of the highly optimistic plans presented by the former Conservative government for creating growth have failed or shown to be just hot air from Boris Johnson and his likes. That is what has now made Brexit reversal a majority wish, however illusionary that may also be. Starmer tried out a diplomatic offensive when he took over power, visiting Berlin and Brussels to make sure they understand his desire for restoring a closer collaboration with the EU. He was well received, but it came out very clearly that Brexit is irreversible and EU membership cannot just be switched back on. Basically, UK is shown to the queue of applicants for membership. Most likely, Starmer will decide to opt for one of the EU ‘light’ options that successful states such as Norway and Switzerland currently enjoys.

The AI initiative is highly focused on achieving investments in computing infrastructure that, in turn, requires equivalent investments in energy production and transmission. The government has lined up private investors, mainly based in Britain, that are willing to speed up the investments in data centers that they already are pursuing. It is a subsidized push into more data centers and the power and communications infrastructure required for them.

Regulations will have to be eased, especially concerning building code, bureaucracy in obtaining permits and of processing environmental concerns. The UK government program is divided into three ‘pillars’ like this, paraphrased from the editorial comments in the government plan:

1. Defining so-called ‘AI Growth Zones’. These are areas across the country that will speed up planning approvals for the rapid build-out of data centres, give them better access to the energy grid, and draw in investment from around the world. The first of these will be in Culham, Oxfordshire – home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority and some of the brightest scientific minds in the world. This will also serve a testing ground to drive forward research on how sustainable energy like fusion can power our AI ambitions. Build a brand new supercomputer with enough AI power to play itself at chess half a million times a second. This is part of the plan to increase compute capacity by twenty-fold by 2030 – supercharging our capacity to power AI products.

2. Boosting AI adoption across public and private sectors. A new digital center of government is being set up within DSIT. This will revolutionize how AI is used in the public sector to improve citizens lives and make government more efficient. It will scan for new ideas, pilot them in public sector settings, then scale them as far as they can go.

3. Keep UK ahead of the pack. A new team will be set up to keep us at the forefront of emerging technology. This team will use the heft of the state to make the UK the best place for business. This could include guaranteeing firms access to data and energy. Taken together, this package will set us on course to full embrace the potential of AI – making it work for Britain.

The AI market in general

Investments in AI in 2023 were dominated by USA, according to a report to the European Parliament, quoting research from Stanford Institute. US investments were over 62 billion euro, China 7 billion, EU 6 billion, UK 3 billion and the rest of the World about 8 billion euro. There is much to catch up with for the EU and UK.

The investments are heavy and the market opportunities for AI are also significant. However, it is not yet sure what will become the real income generating factor for AI. Search engines like Google and social media like Instagram use or offer generative AI for enhancing their searches and content. The end user normally is not charged directly for these services. The tricky part is to figure out how to make the users accept a fee for this kind of service. So far, the revenue model is unchanged, with mainly advertising paying for the services. That is not sustainable if the cost of producing the service skyrockets.

As described in an earlier post

the hitherto unsolved problem with AI is that it burns a lot of electrical power. The energy requirement is so big that each new AI datacenter will nearly require a dedicated power plant, fossil or green.

Conclusion

There is a common reason for UK and USA setting out, more or less simultaneously, to ease restrictions on building large data centers and their connected energy infrastructure. It is simply the main obstacle to the much hyped ‘revolution’ of AI. The tech oligarchs can dream up as many expansion ideas as they want, but if there is no allowed building plots for the data centers, and if there is not close to unlimited energy supply close by, it is a no-go.

The environment will have to bear the main cost of this development, a fact that few consumers will consider when they use the creative apps and hidden AI-services for all kind of tasks. When using an AI-based service on your phone, you sit with a smokestack in your hand, figuratively speaking. USA seems to more or less ignore the issue with fossil fuels, while Europe tries to run CO2-neutral energy sources. Either way, AI stands for a significant amount of future increase in energy consumption that should be weighed against other purposes. Avoiding CO2 does not mean zero warming, because the datacenters also produce huge amounts of excess heat - actually, only a fraction of the energy consumed is used for computation, most has to be discarded as excess heat. Laws of thermodynamics cannot be overruled. In the Nordics, excess datacenter heat is used for heating buildings, but that has to be planned in from the start. Cooling is easier in cold climates, otherwise large amounts of water is required.

As smart and ethereal artificial intelligence may seem, it has a significant environmental footprint that seem to be thrown overboard when running for the AI prize.