Tony Blair Institute: UK needs bit barns to lead in AI deployment, not training

Britain should not try to compete with America and China in the race to build cutting-edge AI models and focus instead on widespread AI adoption, but even this will require a boost local compute capacity.

This is the message from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which warns that the UK needs to "take infrastructure seriously" to remain competitive in the AI era, and fix systemic problems that cannot be resolved overnight.

This will require time, investment, and for the government to make building datacenters a national strategic priority, says the former PM's non-profit organization.

In its report, Blair's think tank says Brtain lacks the resources to keep up with the US, China and the Gulf States, which are all pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into vast, energy-hungry datacenters for AI training. The UK doesn't have the money, the available land or the energy resources to follow suit, it adds.

Instead, the focus must be on deploying and widely adopting AI, "demonstrating to the world how to effectively apply it across sectors including health, education, government, defence and science." This is where the economic gains will be found, the report says, in seeking ways to bolster productivity, improving public services and driving innovation across the economy. The jury is out on if or how this can be achieved.

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