UK Government launches £100m AI contest to fix public services

The UK Government has launched the first procurement competitions under its £100m Sovereign AI R&D Procurement Scheme.

The initiative aims to boost the impact of AI across public services and business.

UK-based firms will compete for the opportunity to develop solutions for selected public sector challenges. The first four of these include improving NHS productivity, developing the efficiency of AI computing infrastructure, integrating AI across defence mission environments and helping  organisations to manage and mitigate AI risks.

The Department of Health and Social Care will be involved, as will the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the Ministry of Defence and the National Cyber Security Centre.

The government said the competitions will focus on tech that has “moved beyond early research but needs the opportunity, funding and environment to prove what it can do”.

Successful firms will develop demonstrator-stage technologies with the potential to scale across the public sector and beyond. They will also retain their intellectual property.

Further challenges are expected to be launched as the programme expands.

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said: “When we said that Sovereign AI would put the heft of a nation behind Britain's AI founders, we meant it. 

“Every year the British state spends billions procuring products and solutions tackling some of the most important challenges facing society, from health to our national defence. This first-of-its-kind scheme will open up these opportunities to the British AI innovators whose ideas could make the biggest difference, backing their businesses to grow here, and go on to win globally.”

The move follows the establishment of the AI Economics Institute, which is the first government-backed institute of its kind in the world. The body is intended to strengthen the understanding of AI’s economic impact, helping ensure policymakers have the evidence needed to maximise AI’s opportunities and respond to its challenges.