Hello everybody, welcome to another edition of C&F Talks. Today it's a great pleasure to have with me Julian David, the CEO of techUK. For those who are unfamiliar with techUK, it's the leading technology trade association for the UK technology industry, and Julian leads a team of 100 strong team, representing over a thousand British-based tech companies, comprising global and national champions, and more than 600 SMEs and scale-up companies.

techUK is the voice of the tech industry in the UK, with 21 member-led programmes covering all of tech, from chips to clicks, and addressing 11 market sectors. Julian's going to be speaking at our upcoming National AI Policy, Infrastructure and Skills Summit, which is being held in London on the 12th of November. Julian, welcome.

Thanks, Maurice, and not just speaking, chairing, so I'm looking forward to an interesting day.

Indeed, and we're looking forward to having you there as the chair, as you say.

We know that techUK, and you personally, welcome the ambitions of the AI Action Plan from the start. What do you think has been achieved since it was launched at the start of the year?

So, I think the first thing is clearly the acceptance of all 50 recommendations, and they cover everything from infrastructure through to deployment. So, the fact that the government has said, right, that's the plan, we're going to do it, that's the first thing. And then, of course, you get the usual challenge with the public sector, which is they announce something in January and then it takes a while for you to start to see it.

But a really big achievement was, you know, making that step that says, and the Prime Minister said it when he announced the Action Plan, I was at the announcement, that, you know, we can either be nervous about AI, or we can embrace it and take the positive opportunity that it unfolds. And that's, you know, that's where they're going. So, then you've got, you know, announcements like the first of the growth zones.

You've got a lot of money being put aside to help some of the innovation that we need to have in the UK. And we're starting to see also some of the infrastructure unfolding, in particular, of course, during the recent President Trump visit, we saw a whole load of commitments from US companies, and many of those are leaders in this space, to actually invest in the UK. So, you know, it really does seem as if we're getting some momentum there.

But I'm sure we'll explore, you know, just how fast it's going, how well it's going during the conference, Maurice.

Yeah, indeed, we will. And many of those companies that you're referring to are speaking at the conference. So, it'd be very interesting to hear what they say.

Could you tell us a bit more about your “Putting AI into Action campaign”, which showcases the opportunities and benefits of AI adoption across various sectors and markets? And are there any unique challenges in any of the different markets and sectors?

So, I think the interesting thing, as well as all the announcements about infrastructure, about investment development here, about companies coming here to do a lot of the language model development, not the training, that's happening in big data centres elsewhere. But it just shows the strength of some parts of the UK economy. And everybody is acknowledging we are probably the third most significant centre for AI development around the world after the US and Argentina.

But what we're particularly focused on at techUK is there's more than just developing these technologies, there's actually deploying them. And that's a big focus for us at techUK. As you mentioned, we work with members over 1,100, as you said, looking at using technology.

And that, I think, is what the Prime Minister was really talking about when he welcomed the Action Plan is, okay, can we get the whole of British public services and the whole of the British economy transformed by using AI? So, that's what we're looking to do. And we're looking to get examples.

We're looking to show how industries can do this. I'm in talks with a number of other sector trade associations about the opportunity for AI and the challenge of deploying AI in their member companies. And it really shows that you can do an awful lot.

Yeah, I mean, there's such huge potential, as you say, but so many different factors for companies to take into account.

A key aspect of the AI Action Plan, in fact, of those announcements that you referred to that large US tech companies made recently during President Trump's visit, was around AI data centres.

How challenging do you think the current environment is in terms of delivering on the AI data centres, given current environmental concerns, planning law, grid capacity, given the grid has huge demand on it from all sorts of other things, including the electrification of transport and other industrial sectors and EVs and so on? How do you think this is going to play out with all these factors being taken into account?

So, I think you've listed the challenges, Maurice, and these are not new things. You know, in the last government administration, we've been talking to the government to save the government. You know, the grid is not fit for purpose to put in major new developments. Now, what can we do about it? The first thing is to recognise that data centres are actually critical national infrastructure. And that's been done. So, that's a step forward. So, that means what? It means that in the planning process, they are going to be a national priority in implementations and installations.

So, hopefully, that will unlock it. We've seen some announcements already, particularly in the north of England, but also around the rest of the country about new data centres for AI, but as well, additional capacity for what we've been using data centres for anyway. So, then that brings me to the next one, which is, you know, having addressed planning, you then got the challenge of energy.

And one of the challenges there is that, you know, AI data centres are energy intensive. And so, we have to get right a couple of things. We have to get right the provision of the energy. So, how are you going to do that? Where are you going to do that? And this is where the sort of decades of somewhat unbalanced development of the grid has to be sorted out.

You know, for a lot of capacity, production capacity in places where there's not much demand, and we haven't put in place the connections to get them to the places where there is demand. You can fix some of that by doing what they're planning to do with locating some of the new developments in places where there is potential energy, so close to offshore wind farms, for example. You can also address it in the longer term by things like small modular nuclear reactors.

But fundamentally, we've just got to invest a lot of money and a lot of effort in making our grid fit for purpose. And by the way, that also means you should use AI to manage the grid because, you know, with the new makeup of the grid, multiple sources of input, balancing. We saw what happened in Spain earlier in the year, and my family, my wife is Spanish, her family were affected by that.

More or less the whole country out for the best part of 24 hours because of the balancing issue. Well, using AI and using other technologies that are coming along in the UK as well, quantum, you can actually address that. You can manage the grid better, you can manage supply better, and you can use these renewable sustainable energy sources without having to rely on fossil fuels or even, you know, the bigger types of nuclear reactors.

Yeah, I mean, as you say, it's a key issue, isn't it, getting the grid fit for purpose, for this and for so many other purposes.

Addressing the AI skills gap is one of the key challenges facing the UK. But where do you think we are at the moment and what's the outlook for the future on this?

So, we've got a lot to do, Maurice, I think, you know, what we have is excellence. We, you know, I mentioned the fact that we're seen as the third major centre for AI development around the world. That's the excellence bit, which is, you know, our universities, graduates from our universities, international people that come and want to play here, put research and development here, bring people from around the world here, and the latest announcement on visas, it shows the government is recognising we need to keep that supply up as well as grow.

The real challenge is, actually, we're not educating people at the lowest level, and particularly, you know, we're not really dealing with the challenge of diversity, with the engagement of women and other groups of society that aren't really represented well in tech, in the AI space. And we've got to fix that. We've got to start at school level; we've got to have a real focus on it. And we have to have that all the way through. And then we've got to look at reskilling the people that are in jobs. One of our members was telling me, you know, “I do want new entrants, Julian, but actually 80% of my 2035 workforce is already in the company”.

I need to be able to train them in the use of these new tools, AI and other tech tools, I need to train them in cybersecurity, because that's the other thing that we're in the challenge that AI will bring us is more and more need for cybersecurity, which has been very much in the press recently. So, it's, you know, we've got to get serious about fixing skills.

techUK is focused on that. We want the DFE to be focused on it. And I think also now the move of Pat McFadden into DWP with the skills agenda, as well as the jobs agenda. I think that gives us an opportunity, but there's a lot to do.

Yeah, I mean, all of this is such an amazing opportunity, as you say, with a number of challenges.

Now, for our viewers, if you'd like to hear more on this, and both from Julian and from our other speakers at the event, the conference is the National AI Policy, Infrastructure Skills Summit in London on the 12th of November. Further information available on our website, www.cityandfinancial.com. 

Julian, looking forward to seeing you next month. Thank you so much.

I'm really looking forward to it, Maurice. A great lineup of speakers, very important topic, one that we continue focusing on at techUK. And as I say, all industries in the UK need to get smart with this.