UCL academics praise UK government’s new AI strategy as ‘positive shift’

University College London

ACADEMICS at University College London (UCL) who met with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday have welcomed the UK government’s new strategy on AI.

The prime minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan following a tour of UCL’s biochemical engineering labs in east London, announcing his ambition for the UK to be a “world leader” in the technology.

The government’s focus is on productivity, and for humans and machines to work side-by-side. Starmer said that AI “will drive incredible change” and that it “has the potential to transform the lives of working people”.

The latest AI plan represents a shift from the previous government’s emphasis on AI safety, marked by the AI safety summit in Bletchley Park in November 2023. In September 2023, Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman warned of the possibility to engineer biological weapons using AI. This was followed in October by then-PM Rishi Sunak’s warning that “AI could make it easier to build chemical or biological weapons”.

Gary Lye, director of UCL’s Manufacturing Futures Lab and professor of biochemical engineering, told TCE: “Safety concerns cannot be ignored but the focus on the benefits of AI is a positive shift.”

The new government plan has attracted a commitment of £14bn (US$17.1bn) of investment from the private sector. The government predicts this will create 13,250 jobs, many of which will be based in data centres.

Peter Kyle, the UK’s science, innovation and technology secretary, said: “Putting AI to work right across the economy can help businesses cut waste, move faster, and be more productive.”

More than ‘working magic with data’

During his tour of the labs, Starmer spoke to academics who are already using AI in their research. Max Besenhard, a chemical engineer researching how AI can identify optimum conditions for chromatography, described the government’s plan as “a fantastic and highly welcome commitment”. He told TCE: “The plan is clear in emphasising the importance of talent development, the integration of new technologies across various sectors, and, most notably, the critical role of data.

“AI is much more than simply working magic with data. A true commitment to AI also means supporting experimental science and engineering to create the necessary tools that generate reliable data and can autonomously operate, empowered by AI algorithms.”

Starmer also saw an example of UCL’s progress towards “self-driven labs”, in which “liquid handling robots" perform multiple experiments in parallel and generate data more quickly than a human. Solomon Bawa, a lecturer in digital manufacturing who works with the robots, told TCE that AI could “transform materials discovery and synthesis”, while giving engineers more time “to focus on solving complex challenges in chemical processes”.