AI policy update: UK-US tech prosperity deal and national security

US-UK tech prosperity deal

The government and several US tech giants agreed a £31bn agreement, dubbed the ‘tech prosperity deal’, as part of President Trump's second state visit to the UK.

The agreement includes a £22bn investment from Microsoft, its largest ever outside the US, to power the UK’s AI future. Around £11bn of this will go towards building new AI and cloud infrastructure, including the country’s largest supercomputer. Darren Hardman, CEO of Microsoft UK, has more on this unprecedented commitment.

Meanwhile, Nvidia is investing up to £11bn in British AI factories deploying up to 120,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphic processing units (GPUs). Max Beverton-Palmer, head of public policy, UK at Nvidia, has more on the company's scale of commitment and ambition. 

To get a full run-down of all the investments and projects, Claire Penketh, policy and public affairs manager at BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, has an excellent summary and Abigail Morris has great insights from across the pond.

As the dust settled, people are beginning to unpick the announcement and unpack what it may mean.

Tom Bristow of Politico reports that the UK is likely to receive around half the number of Nvidia GPUs that the media initially reported.

Katja Bego of Chatham House has an insightful post on the national security implications of the deal, noting that the UK may lose further leverage in future negotiations by locking itself into the US tech stack.

Hamish Low, AI policy fellow at the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS), suggests a new strategy for the UK government to achieve sovereignty. He recommends that the UK should focus on building an ecosystem of AI ‘middleware’ that integrates the UK into the AI value chain.

AI policy in practice 

The Appraise Network spoke with Minh Tran, founder of Humane-AI Asia and responsible AI advisor at FPT Group, as part of their series of articles examining AI policy in practice.

Minh discusses the progress of AI policy in Vietnam, the support that developing nations require, and how AI policy may evolve in the region. 

Is the UN making a power grab for AI? 

The UN is advocating for a greater role in governing AI globally and is launching a global dialogue on AI governance together with a panel on AI to assess the risks and impacts of the technology. 

However, the always insightful Mark Scott suggests this may be a mistake. He argues that while it’s right to coordinate AI governance initiatives and ensure governments play a part, rejecting existing multi-stakeholder approaches is not the right approach.

New insights: AI policy resources

The excellent Alisar Mustafa, head of AI policy and safety at Duco, has shared a treasure trove of AI policy resources. She details things to read, organisations to follow, podcasts to listen to, and events to attend. There's plenty to dig into. 

The reshuffle: all change at DSIT

Following the UK government reshuffle, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has a new ministerial team. 

Former work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall becomes secretary of state at DSIT, while Kanishka Narayan becomes Parliamentary under-secretary of state, focused on AI, among other areas. 

While the team is different, the Labour MP Callum Anderson suggests the goals remain the same as the government continues to drive forward the UK’s science and tech ambitions.

For those in AI policy, the reshuffle means engaging with the new team, helping ministers get up to speed and re-emphasising policy asks. For many, the time to engage will be after Labour party conference, as diaries begin to return to normal. James Marshall, head of public affairs at MHP Group and a former director of the No 10 policy unit, has more post-reshuffle tips.

New roadmaps: greater assurance

DSIT has launched its trusted third-party AI assurance roadmap, which is intended to ensure the widespread adoption of safe and responsible AI in the UK. 

As Tess Buckley of TechUK explains, the roadmap sets out four steps the government will take to spur the growth and improve the quality of the UK’s AI assurance ecosystem. These steps include helping professionalise AI assurance in the UK and creating a fund to develop solutions to future-proof the market, among other areas. Dan Howl of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT also has a take on the roadmap.

New coalition launches: the Business AI Alliance 

The Business AI Alliance launched last month to advocate for a stronger voice for SMEs in the UK AI ecosystem. 

As Richard Davis, co-founder of the group, says, “SMEs are the lifeblood of innovation and job creation”, and yet they are often unheard in the AI policy debate. 

The group aims to act as a voice for British AI SMEs to influence and shape policy, regulation and strategic direction, fostering a vibrant AI ecosystem. 

New views: impacting AI policy

The Appraise Network continue its series of articles on those impacting AI policy with an interview with Julia Mykhailiuk, an EU AI policy expert. 

In the piece, Julia, who was involved in the recent negotiations on the EU General Purpose Code of Practice, discusses her views on the final wording of the code, the benefits of the EU AI Act more widely and the role of civil society in shaping AI policy. 

She reminds us that "civil society is important in holding the policy-making process accountable to public interest outcomes”. 

In the news: nothing but delays

In an insightful piece for Euractiv, Maximilian Henning writes about the delays to the drafting of detailed AI standards, a core part of the EU’s AI Act. 

Maximilian notes that the leader of the EU’s standards drafting process has called out the companies criticising the delays in completing the standards for not engaging in the process and thus contributing to the delays. 

It’s an interesting piece that highlights the tension between the importance of technical standards to turn broad principles into concrete rules and relying on private actors to help draft such standards. 

Who start following this month

Chloe Chadwick is an Oxford University PhD researcher and a former adviser to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in Australia. 

She focuses on emerging technologies, state capacity, and public sector reform, and has recently detailed her new research on public sector AI adoption in the UK, Canada, and Australia. 

In a fascinating post, Chloe suggests that there is a clash of logics when it comes to AI adoption, where current digital budgeting does not match the evolving realities of AI projects in government.


Chartered PR practitioner James Boyd-Wallis is vice-chair of the CIPR Public Affairs group and co-founder of The Appraise Network, for AI policy and advocacy professionals in the UK.