UK makes a play to become global AI safety hub

If every British politician who refers to the UK as ‘a tech and science superpower’ were obliged to put £100 into a pot for uttering this cliche, there would be enough capital to fund at least half of this nation’s scale-ups.

And yet Prime Minster Rishi Sunak, who made the brief journey from Downing Street to the QEII Centre to open this year’s London Tech Week, for a second year on the trot, does appear genuine in his belief that the key to the nation’s economic growth is its tech sector.

On a balmy Monday morning in a hot and bustling conference centre – one that no longer appears big enough to contain the splurge of delegates that snake in long queues outside the venue – the PM asked the tech community – and new pal DeepMinds cofounder Demis Hassabis (pictured here on interviewing duties) to judge his ruling Conservative party “not by our words, but our actions”.

In terms of action, it was good news for the scale-ups: to make London a more attractive place to do business, the PM confirmed that the government was committed to overhauling much-maligned listing rules.

The news follows British chip design firm Arm’s decision to list in New York in March and appears to be something that the UK government and the London Stock Exchange are working hard to fix.

Pension rules

Sunak also confirmed that the government was rewriting the pension rules to unlock new private capital from some of Britain’s £4.6 trillion pension pot – which high growth tech start ups stand to benefit from.

In UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s later address at LTW he added that it would make “very good sense” for pension fund holders if some of their investment was held in high potential industries.

“We’re doing a very big piece of work pension industry assets and you are going to hear more about that this year. Part of that is looking at regulation – fund managers are not investing as we’d like to,” said the Chancellor.

“Another part of it is the UK learning to adopt a risk mindset like they do in Silicon Valley – we need everyone’s help to change that,” he added.

But the main subject that dominated Sunak’s speech – and indeed the whole event – was the thunderous pace at which generative AI is developing and knowing where the opportunities (as well as threats) lie for UK jobs and the economy.

Turning the brakes on AI

Following a few open letters from leaders of the world’s biggest tech firms, warning of the existential threat AI poses, Sunak appears to be taking a more cautious line.

He reiterated his £100m investment in an expert taskforce, adding that “leading on AI also means leading on AI safety”.

During his speech the PM also announced that Google DeepMind, Open AI and Anthropic have just agreed to give early/priority access to models for research and safety purposes.

“We want to make the UK not just the intellectual home but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation,” he said.

He added that the UK would also lead the way by playing host to a Summit on global AI safety later on this year.

HSBC Innovation Banking

Sunak also welcomed in the rebrand of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) UK, which launched this week as HSBC Innovation Banking and is open to the nation’s UK start ups and scale ups.

Many references were made to the government’s March rescue of SVB UK, which Hunt, who spoke at another keynote with two of the bank’s staff, described as “a hairy time”.

While the UK chancellor called SVB UK “a precious Ming vase”  that was one of the few places UK start ups could go for capital, HSBC bought it for just £1 back in March after its US parent was brought down by a run on its assets by customers.

The hope is now that the new global banking division – which houses both the former SVB UK as well as newly created innovation teams in the US, Israel and Hong Kong – will offer a globally-connected, specialised banking proposition to support a broad range of innovation businesses and their investors.

Also, in the room the day the bank was rescued was Erin Platts, CEO and head of SVB EMEA, who is now heading up the newly rebranded entity. Platts joined Hunt on the LTW stage to give delegates an update the new entity.

“We’re current using US systems still so we still need to get the infrastructure on the UK system,” she said, adding that the aim was to “protect what we’ve got.”

She added: “We bought this to take it forward to a much larger base and we intend to support anyone from first time founders through to companies preparing for an IPO.”

Ahead of the bank’s launch this week, Sunak also offered a statement, saying that the bank would help innovative businesses to unlock their potential, create more jobs and access new global opportunities “supporting my priority to grow the UK economy and cement our position as a science and tech superpower.”

He was doing so well until then. That’s £100 in the pot, Rishi.