The Alan Turing Institute, supported by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), will pilot a new UK government initiative to lead in shaping global technical standards for Artificial Intelligence
The new AI Standard Hub will create practical tools for businesses, bring the UK’s AI community together through a new online platform, and develop educational materials to help organisations develop and benefit from global standards. This will help put the UK at the forefront of this rapidly developing area.
The Hub will work to improve the governance of AI, complement pro-innovation regulation and unlock the huge economic potential of these technologies to boost investment and employment now the UK has left the European Union.
BSI, the UK National Standards Body, and NPL, the country’s national metrology institute, will share their world-class expertise in developing standards and research to deliver the pilot with The Alan Turing Institute, the national institute for data science and AI. The hub is backed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Office for AI (OAI).
The move kicks off one part of the UK’s new National AI Strategy, a ten-year plan to strengthen the country’s position as a global science superpower and “harness AI to transform the economy and society while leading governance and standards to ensure everyone benefits”.
DCMS Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy Chris Philp said:
New research published today predicts that the use of AI by businesses will more than double in the next twenty years, with more than 1.3 million UK businesses using artificial intelligence by 2040.
It shows that in 2020, UK businesses spent around £63 billion on AI technology and AI related-labour and this is expected to reach more than £200 billion by 2040.
The UK is already successful in this field. According to Tech Nation, the UK now has more than 1,300 AI companies – a 600 per cent increase in the number of firms over the last decade. In the same period, venture capital investment rocketed from $120 million to more than $3.4 billion in 2020. The huge potential of AI technologies to power new firms and revolutionise old ones with improved productivity and more flexible ways of working demonstrates the need for tools to govern its development, ethics and use, including through globally developed technical standards.
In its pilot phase, the new hub will focus on:
Ahead of the pilot’s launch, there will be a series of roundtables with a wide range of organisations led by The Alan Turing Institute to shape the Hub’s activities.
The move follows the launch of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation’s (CDEI) ‘roadmap to an effective AI assurance ecosystem’, which is also part of the National AI Strategy. The roadmap sets out the steps needed to develop world-leading products and services to verify AI systems and accelerate AI adoption. Technical standards are vital for enabling effective AI assurance because they give organisations a common basis for verifying AI.
George Freeman, BEIS Minister for Science, Research and Innovation said:
Adrian Smith, Director and Chief Executive of The Alan Turing Institute said,
Scott Steedman, Director-General, Standards at BSI said:
Dr Peter Thompson FREng, CEO, NPL said
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Notes to Editors