Both major UK parties—Labour, which is poised to win, and the Conservatives, who have been in power for 14 years but are currently embroiled in scandals and accusations of incompetence—have included measures in their manifestos to support AI development. These measures involve removing planning barriers for new data centres and establishing a National Data Library to enhance data-driven public services. They also aim to ease restrictions on building new data centres, even in controversial green belt areas where local opposition (NIMBYs) is strong due to the size and resource demands of these facilities.
Philip Kaye, co-founder and director at data centre provider Vesper Technologies, reflects the sentiment of many developers. He describes the reduction in planning red tape as “long overdue” and “a step in the right direction to take advantage of the AI revolution.” However, he also emphasizes the need for investment in renewable power and cooling technologies to mitigate the environmental impact of new facilities. Labour believes this issue should be addressed by the market rather than the government.
In contrast, there is little in the Reform UK or Liberal Democrat policies although Reform proposals mirror Tory (Conservative) promises to make the public sector adopt AI which they (or their unions fearing job losses) are reluctant to do. The Liberal Democrat policies only mention the outdated computing systems that exist in the NHS, although all parties have admitted that these legacy systems, some of which are windows 95 era, need to be urgently replaced and all parties expect that new AI-generated software systems will overhaul the existing IT NHS systems.
Regrettably, this NHS renewal IT work will probably go to the same sort of incompetent “usual tenderers” such as Fujitsu who were responsible for the Post Office Horizon System Scandal. TheRegister.com and other IT new outlets have recently highlighted the problem that procurement in the UK is broken being too expensive for competent mid-size players to be able to bid in an environment where there is a civil-service fetish for the usual suppliers of companies like Fujitsu, Capita and TCS. The usual IT Government mess will undoubtedly continue with contracts that are not understood by the lawyers involved on the Government side of negotiations leading to entirely one-sided contracts where the only risk is on the Government and where there is no real redress against the IT suppliers and where the cost of the contract grows at the same rate as the potholes on the roads resulting in a massive lack of real value, coupled with an entire industry of “artificial value creation within contract assessment” sustained by incompetent civil servants.