Simon Wardley

Today, OpenAI and the British government signed a new agreement to harness AI’s transformative power to make government services more efficient, while fueling private-sector innovation across the UK. It’s another step forward in building a global system of democratic AI designed to put the technology into the hands of as many people as possible OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman signed the agreement remotely alongside Peter Kyle MP, the UK’s Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. As Sam put it, “AI is a core technology for nation building that will transform economies and deliver growth” He’s exactly right. As part of this partnership, we’ll work with the UK government to bring AI’s benefits into everyday use—helping civil servants work more efficiently, supporting small businesses as they navigate public services, and sharing technical expertise to advance safe, responsible deployment This partnership will advance the core goal of the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, which calls for making AI more accessible by accelerating infrastructure construction and expanding access to the data needed to train cutting‑edge models AI is already having a tangible impact in Britain. Developers, startups, established companies like Virgin Atlantic, and world‑class research institutions such as Oxford University use our technology to fuel innovation, increase productivity, and create new economic opportunities. The UK government is leading by example: A GOV.UK business chatbot helps thousands of small enterprises get clearer, faster answers on rules and support programs “Humphrey,” Whitehall’s AI assistant, lightens administrative load so officials can focus on higher‑value work The agreement also reflects our ongoing commitment to working with the UK to bring AI’s gains to more British citizens. OpenAI’s first international office opened in London in 2023, and we plan to further expand our UK presence later this year Our work in the UK and around the world is focused on ensuring that democratic AI—which puts the technology in the hands of as many people as possible so they can share in its productivity gains—wins out over  concentrated AI, which would keep the benefits limited to a few This week’s expected release of the Trump Administration’s AI Action Plan is likely to add further momentum to the growing effort to build a global system of democratic AI rails by proposing new ways of speeding AI infrastructure construction, modernizing the grid, and generating the energy needed to power advanced AI data centers This is how you build democratic AI—not in one leap, but step by step, putting the technology in more hands so people everywhere can solve hard problems and improve their lives. This agreement is a powerful step forward Read more about the new partnership here https://lnkd.in/gUyUq2uB

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The UK’s public sector - encompassing policing, the NHS, local councils and central government - could benefit massively from wider adoption of #GenerativeAI and #AgenticAI. 🌞 Large-scale trials across NHS England and the UK Civil Service have produced impressive productivity gains that are freeing up frontline workers to spend less time on mundane admin and more time on what they do best – helping people. 👥 As our head of public sector, Amanda Sleight, explains in this feature, the potential is enormous. 🚀 A more efficient, AI-enabled state will not only enable the government to fulfil its Plan for Change, but also deliver measurably better services to citizens. 👏 Read more here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dhvS8tXW #PublicSector #UKGov #Productivity #MicrosoftCopilot Jonathan Scott MBE

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The UK Ministry of Defence just published their first Responsible AI Senior Officers' Report, and the findings mirror what we're seeing across every sector: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲. The MOD appointed Responsible AI Senior Officers (RAISOs) across 12 organisations. But the report makes clear these senior roles are just the start. Each RAISO needs dedicated support teams, local points of contact, and multidisciplinary expertise to function effectively. Their experience maps directly onto the four essential tracks for AI governance: ➜ Building organisational foundations: RAISOs are establishing governance structures, building AI inventories, and creating networks. The ad hoc approach worked initially, but now they need dedicated teams. ➜ Navigating laws and standards: JSP 936, their AI policy directive, has provided the impetus for internal policy updates across organisations. Good policy creates clarity that accelerates responsible adoption. ➜ Creating guardrails: They've embedded an AI ethics risk assessment toolkit into existing frameworks while facing what they describe as "the tri-fold task of recruiting external AI experts, training existing personnel to a high level, and upskilling the rest of the workforce." ➜ Operating with human oversight: They're building monitoring dashboards and launching Digital Skills for Defence, recognising that meaningful human control requires specific capabilities, training, and infrastructure. The report's conclusion on workforce is clear: "While there is a growing cadre of AI professionals in some areas, the most significant challenge identified across all RAISO statements is increasing the availability of suitably qualified and experienced personnel to support Defence's commitment to Responsible AI Adoption." What are the challenges and opportunities across these four tracks in your organisation? Download the skills map to see where your experience fits and plot your course to becoming an AI Governance Pro: 📥  https://lnkd.in/gHYeM4bM

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Another week, more AI action - this time the UK Compute Roadmap. There's loads of good stuff in this - its genuinely worth checking out but here's what I'd draw your attention to: 1) The Roadmap sets out how the UK Gov will spend up to £2 billion to build out the UK's public compute. 2) A big chuck of this compute will be used to deliver on national priorities through the UK’s AI Research Resource (AIRR). This gives the UK Government compute to allocate to specific areas of research and public missions. This is part of the journey to x20 the amount of public compute in the next 5 years as set out in Matt Clifford's AI Opportunities Action Plan. 3) Large scale AI infrastructure will be delivered via AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) - a core group of nationally significant sites will be set up, each capable of serving at least 500MW of demand by 2030, with at least one scaling to more than 1GW 4) The Sovereign AI Unit (where I work) - has £500m to make things happen. In a Government context this is huge. In an industry context this is tiny. That means we have to work on novel areas. We're doing just that, more below 5) Sovereign AI has a reserved allocation within the AIRR - this means we have live compute capacity to support our goals. At the end of June we launched a 1 week call (now closed!) for highly ambitious projects across a range of priority areas. We got some really exciting proposals and I hope we can say more on what we are taking forward soon. 6) Compute will be a priority area for Sovereign AI - this means supporting R&D into new computing paradigms. If you have ground-breaking ideas we want to know There's real momentum - roll on the next series of announcements we're able to get over the line. Links to relevant info: Sovereign AI AIRR call for researchers: https://lnkd.in/e5BW_3Nh Compute Roadmap: https://lnkd.in/eeB26M8K Compute Roadmap Press release: https://lnkd.in/eG_U3R8p

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The NHS 10-Year Plan Digital Ambition and the Fatal Mistake of Planning Forwards The newly published NHS 10-Year Plan should be a rallying cry for digital transformation. Instead, it reads like a manual for polishing the machinery of a crumbling paradigm. Despite the rhetoric, digital and AI are presented not as foundational capabilities, but as tools to marginally improve an already outdated system. This is not transformation. It is optimisation dressed up as strategy. The core issue is this. No one in the policymaking, management or delivery apparatus of the NHS appears to be asking the only question that matters: what kind of future health system do we actually need to build? And how do we get there? Instead of vision, we get bureaucracy. Instead of bold thinking, we get incrementalism. This is planning in its most reductive form — starting from the present, projecting forwards, and hoping that a few digital tweaks to EHRs and the NHS app will prepare us for the world that is coming. But the world is not waiting. The convergence of AI, systems biology, real-time data, and participatory technologies is redefining what is possible in health. The future is being built elsewhere, by people who understand that digital is not a department or a dashboard. It is the intelligence layer of the system itself. By contrast, the NHS plan treats digital as a side project. It is a bolt-on to the Horizon 1 machine, not the operating system of a reimagined future. Back in 2018, I led Beyond the Fog, a foresight report for the Royal Free Charity. We took a future-back approach and asked what a better, technology-enabled health system could look like. What we found was clear. If we are serious about lifelong health, we need to build a dynamic, adaptive, real-time, collaborative information infrastructure. One that serves not just patients, but clinicians, carers, researchers, and communities. One that enables learning, coordination, prevention and personalisation to happen in real time, everywhere. In that future, digital and AI are not add-ons. They are the brain and nervous system of the system. Without this core capability baked into the heart of a future NHS, there is no possibility of building a 21st-century health service. To outsource this strategic intelligence to 3rd party providers is to hand over the future of public health through the back door. It is not a clever partnership. It is a loss of sovereignty. With the launch of GPT-5 and the acceleration of biomedical science, this level of strategic blindness is indefensible. It is a dereliction of responsibility. A failure to lead. A failure to even try to understand the magnitude of the shift underway. The NHS does not need more cautious planning. It needs bold vision, serious strategic design, and the courage to build the capabilities that will define the next 50 years. If this plan is the best we can do, then we are not just behind the curve. We are facing the wrong direction.

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