AI Sector Deal

Citation
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, AI Sector Deal (Apr. 26, 2018) (full-text).

Overview
Creating an economy that harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) and big data is one of the great opportunities of our age.

This Sector Deal is the first commitment from government and industry to realise this technology's potential, outlining a package of up to £0.95 billion of support for the sector, which includes government, industry and academic contributions up to £603 million in newly allocated funding, and up to £342 million from within existing budgets, alongside £250 million for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. This support complements and leverages some of the £1.7 billion that has been announced under the cross-sectoral Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund so far, with 5 challenges having AI components that AI businesses will be able to bid into through future competitions.

This Sector Deal sets out actions to promote the adoption and use of AI in the UK, and delivers on the recommendations of the independent AI review, "Growing the AI industry in the UK," led by Professor Dame Wendy Hall and Jérôme Pesenti1. Their review, published in October 2017, engaged widely with businesses, academia, investors and other stakeholders on ways to boost the UK's emerging AI sector at home and across the world. It sets out proposals to improve the institutions that support AI in the United Kingdom, to build a skilled workforce, and to stimulate access to data &mdash; collectively the lifeblood of any AI business.

This Sector Deal reinforces the 5 foundations of the Industrial Strategy:


 * ideas
 * people
 * infrastructure
 * business environment
 * places

It also draws on the government's Digital Strategy, which focuses on reinforcing our strengths in telecoms, data and enterprise. A key ambition of the industrial strategy is for the UK to be the world's most innovative economy &mdash; this Sector Deal aims to attract and retain both domestic and global AI talent; deliver major upgrades to our digital and data infrastructure; ensure that the UK is the best place to start and grow an AI business; and contribute to communities' prosperity by spreading the benefits of AI across the country.