The Law and AI: The UK sets out its Action Plan for AI

From Lovelace, Babbage and Turing to a rapid global mission to become an AI superpower, the UK has set out its AI Opportunities Action Plan (the “Action Plan”) to become a pioneer and world leader of AI innovation. The Action Plan aims not only to boost economic growth but seeks to provide jobs for the future and benefit people’s everyday lives by improving sectors such as the NHS and schools.

On 13 January 2025, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, gave a speech in response to the publication of the AI Opportunities Action Plan and his support of it. His speech started with the benefits that AI is already having in the NHS, by recounting a story of a patient who suffered a stroke. AI was able to identify the location of the blood clot within 3 minutes, saving invaluable time and ultimately giving the patient the best opportunity of survival and recovery. This is one of many stories highlighting the impact AI is already having, and as the Action Plan envisages, the profound impact it will continue to have on different sectors. As the Prime Minister puts it, AI is an opportunity to turbocharge growth, create the companies of the future and radically improve our public services.

What is the AI Opportunities Action Plan?

Matt Clifford CBE, tech entrepreneur and Chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, was commissioned by the Labour Government in 2024 to conduct an independent study on how the UK can harness opportunities offered by AI. Clifford set out his findings in the Action Plan which contains 50 recommendations for the Government to consider. Clifford’s recommendations fall into three broad categories:

1. Laying the foundations to enable AI. Recommendations in this category focus on creating the necessary infrastructure and frameworks to support the growth of AI in the UK, including ensuring that the UK has access to talent, data and resources.
2. Changing lives by embracing AI adoption. Recommendations centre on ensuring better adoption of AI in both the public and private sector by enabling them to work together and reinforce each other. For example, it is recommended that the UK government employ a flexible “Scan>Pilot>Scale” approach to be able to rapidly pilot and scale AI products and services in the UK and encourage the private sector to do the same.
3. Securing the UK’s future with homegrown AI. Recommendations focus on positioning the UK as an “AI maker”, not an “AI taker” by making the UK an attractive place to build and scale frontier AI companies.

The UK Government’s response to the AI Opportunities Action Plan

The Government published its response to the Action Plan on the same day the Action Plan was unveiled. All 50 recommendations were endorsed by it (48 in full, 2 in part), with the majority of recommendations being scheduled to be delivered within the next 12 months.

Below, our some of our key takeaways but you can read the Government’s response to each of the 50 recommendations set out in the Action Plan in full here.

AI Growth Zones (“AIGZs”)

The Government intends to take forward Clifford’s recommendation to increase the capacity of AI Research Resources (“AIRR”) twenty-fold by 2030 by implementing AIGZs. The investment into sovereign supercomputing will be complemented by the over £25 billion private sector investment into new UK data centres since July 2024. In response to the Action Plan, the Government promises to deliver a new state of the art supercomputing facility to double the capacity of the national AIRR. The first zone will be in Culham, Oxfordshire, the home of the Headquarters for the UK Atomic Energy Authority, bringing together a fusion of AI infrastructure and energy solutions. The pilot of this AI data centre will start with a capacity of 100MW, with the potential scale up to 500MW.

National Data Library (“NDL”)

Clifford recommends that the Government identifies at least “five high impact data sets that the NDL will seek to make available to AI researchers and innovators”. The Government agreed with Clifford’s recommendation for high impact data sets, and responded that the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (“DSIT”) will explore how to implement the recommendations as the NDL, and data access policies are developed.

However, the Government only partially agreed to the recommendation of establishing a copyright cleared British media asset training data set, to be licenced internationally at scale. DSIT and the Department for Culture and Media will explore the potential role of the Government for this recommendation.

Further details on the National Data Library and data access policy are said to follow in due course.

Public and Private Sector

The Action Plan recommends a large-up scale of use of AI in the public sector. Several examples were given as to how AI can benefit the public sector. For example, personalising lessons to children’s needs at school, AI-powered scans to assist doctors detect diseases earlier and cutting down NHS waiting times through efficient scheduling systems for appointments. Clifford recommended that the Government uses digital government infrastructure to create new opportunities for innovators in order to enable the public and private sectors to reinforce each other. In response the Government stated it will scope out options to use the digital government infrastructure to improve AI procurement and mission focused national AI tenders.

“AI Maker” not an “AI Taker”

The Action Plan recommended that within the next six months, a long-term plan, backed by 10 years of investment commitment would need to be established by the Government. The Government agreed to this recommendation and stated that DSIT will publish a long-term compute strategy report in Spring 2025.

The blanket recommendation to increase the diversity of talent pool was agreed by the Government. The Action Plan also recommended ways in which new educational pathways can assist with enhancing the AI talent pool in the UK. Following Clifford’s recommendation, the Government has promised to set up scholarship and fellowship programmes, as well as creating space for AI in the ‘Curriculum and Assessment Review’. In addition, the Action Plan put forward recommended changes to the UK immigration visa system to attract AI workers from abroad. More will be said on this when the Industrial Strategy is released.

What does the AI Opportunities Action Plan mean for the content used to train AI models and copyright?

The Action Plan considers the current position for AI companies to use content to train their AI models in the UK to be unsatisfactory, stating that it is “hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI”. Clifford recommends that the Government establishes a copyright cleared British media asset training data set in order to support AI innovation. The Government has only partially agreed to this recommendation, noting that it would engage with stakeholders and partner organisations to consider taking on this recommendation.

Currently, there is an open consultation on Copyright and AI where the Government is seeking opinions on allowing AI providers a wider right to use copyright-protected materials needed to achieve the necessary scale required to train their AI models (you can read more about this in one of our previous update). This consultation is open until 25 February 2025 and so the future plans for AI and copyright are by no means decided, although quite notably the House of Lords very recently voted in favour of amending the Data (Use and Access) Bill to tackle the unauthorised use of intellectual property backing and protecting the interests of rights holders over AI providers.

How will it impact AI Regulation?

A balance between accelerating AI and regulating AI technologies is something that will need to be monitored closely. The Prime Minister’s approach to AI development is pro-innovation, designed to boost the AI ecosystem in the UK and stimulate economic growth. This is a very different approach to that taken by the Conservative government, whose focus was more on AI safety and public trust and who was responsible for setting up the AI Safety Institute. Whilst the Labour government will continue to support the AI Safety Institute, Peter Kyle, Science Secretary, announced that a “course correction” is needed because whilst the safety of AI and public trust in technology is important, an over-bearing focus on safety has blinkered innovation and hampered growth.

The Government’s response to the Action Plan highlights the Government’s commitment to a pro innovation approach to AI regulation and an approach that, as Kyle says, “does not allow AI-driven opportunity and prosperity to trundle along at a snail’s pace”. This seems to suggest that the UK will continue to use a patchwork of pre-existing legislation, regulatory principles and codes to regulate AI rather than implementing broad statutory based regulations of AI technologies like the EU’s AI Act.

For now though, we will have to wait and see how the Government puts Clifford’s recommendations into action. With a clear view from the Lords, it will also be interesting to follow the Data (Use and Access) Bill’s passage through Government and whether the Government will listen to the concerns being raised by those in the creative sectors about the unauthorised use of their work.

We will continue to monitor the regulatory landscape for AI in the UK and EU and keep you updated as matters progress. Should you require any advice concerning the impact AI may have on your business, or if you have any questions in relation to this topic, please contact Selina Clifford or any member of our AI Team.

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