Move fast, build sovereign

Good morning. It's Tuesday, it's Tom and there is loads to get through.

Happening Today 🗓️

This isn't it: MPs debate tech sovereignty at 4:30 pm led by Labour's Chi Onwurah. Expect plenty of chat about how government contracts to foreign tech firms are the antithesis to 'sovereignty'. More below.

MedAIcate me: The Lords' Science Committee opens an inquiry into AI-personalised medicines.

Lots of forums: The Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum hosts a "Responsible AI Forum" today with speakers from Ofcom, the ICO, Anthropic and Cabinet Office.

News In Brief 🩳

No ban yet: MPs last night voted down a Conservative Party move to ban under-16s from social media, but backed Labour amendments to give sweeping new powers to ministers to enforce the outcome of the government's social media and AI chatbot consultation.

You've been warned: Tech secretary Liz Kendall told platforms to use "every tool at their disposal" to protect women and girls from online abuse and misogyny after a meeting with Snapchat, Meta, YouTube and TikTok yesterday. Kendall said platforms would face "further action" and has asked Ofcom to "swiftly" report on which platforms are failing to meet existing measures. 

Hit back: Claims that weakening UK copyright law would boost AI growth are not supported by tech companies' own evidence, research commissioned by the News Media Association argues. The analysis looks at three economic modelling reports, which sided with tech companies' arguments.

Agents of change: AI agents will change how we shop but consumer protections have to remain robust, the Competition and Markets Authority sets out in an in-depth research paper.

Move fast, build sovereign

The government wants to move fast to build AI capacity: the Sovereign AI Unit launches in five weeks, British tech companies are raising billions and its top scientific adviser is pushing on photonics. But MPs will flag today that it is yet to define what sovereignty is — or reflect it in policy, procurement and regulation.

Launch date: The Sovereign AI Unit, which has £500m to invest in strategic AI startups, will launch on April 16 and is lining up its first investments for that date too. Its website went live yesterday and looks lovely, but has little detail. However there is plenty we know already. It will invest between £1m and around £20m in companies which it believes can build a British advantage in the AI stack. Those firms will also get access to compute, datasets and advance market commitments (procurement guarantees).

Busy raising: While SovAI looks for companies to invest in, two British AI firms, Nscale and Isembard, announced big rounds yesterday. Nscale said it had raised $2 billion to build data centres globally. It has one in Slough and another planned in Loughton, Essex, which is meant to open this year but the company gave no update on that when I asked. A Guardian investigation yesterday found it is still a scaffolding yard. Meanwhile, AI manufacturing startup Isembard raised $50m to open 25 new factories across Europe. The London-based firm frames itself as a sovereign play to rebuild domestic manufacturing in aerospace, robotics and defence.

Can we debate it first? Nscale and Isembard are exactly the kind of companies the government's sovereignty narrative is built around, but MPs will ask this afternoon whether the government knows what it's trying to achieve. Chi Onwurah, the chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, has a debate in Parliament to look at the government's approach to tech sovereignty. "I want reassurance that there is a well-thought out and cross-governmental approach... and we are not simply sleepwalking into techno-serfdom," Onwurah said. Note: DSIT has been working on a legal definition of sovereignty since last year. AI minister Kanishka Narayan will respond at the end of the debate.

This might help: One possible answer to Britain's approach to sovereignty arrived yesterday in the form of a letter from the government's chief scientific adviser. Dame Angela McLean said the government should build domestic capability in photonics. The Council for Science and Technology, which she co-chairs, called for a "roadmap" by April and a team to look at how to pull together photonics clusters in places like Southampton, Sheffield, Glasgow and Belfast. Photonics - the technology of generating, controlling and detecting light - is crucial for everything from fibre optic cables to AI hardware and by 2035, the Council reckons more than 60% of the UK economy will directly depend on it.

Your boss is wrong about AI

Multiverse shared some research with us this morning revealing that many tech execs are overestimating how their staff use AI. The upskilling platform surveyed 800 execs and 2,000 staff in the UK and US, showing a gap between bosses' perception of how staff are using AI tools and the reality.

The research also shows that while half of mid-level workers use AI tools daily, only a fifth of junior employees do. More than half of staff, meanwhile, received less than five hours of formal AI training, with most relying on working it out themselves.

Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse, said: “AI is not a monolithic tool, and its application varies wildly between a junior developer, a middle manager, and a CEO. The 30 percent gap in adoption we see between seniority levels is a clear signal that the one-size-fits-all approach to AI is failing."

Thanks for reading, sharing, messaging. Back tomorrow.

Tom