U.K. Announces $1.4 Billion Drive Into Artificial Intelligence

U.S. tech giants, European telecoms firms, Japanese venture capital and the U.K. government has put together a 1 billion-pound ($1.4 billion) investment into the U.K. artificial intelligence industry, as governments weigh how to compete with China. The deal comprises a total of 300 million pounds of private financing, 300 million pounds of new government spending in addition to 400 million pounds the state has already announced. "Artificial intelligence provides limitless opportunities to develop new, efficient and accessible products and services," Business Secretary Greg Clark said in an emailed statement Thursday. In prioritizing AI, Britain joins several other nations that see the emerging technology as central to their future place in the world, such as China, which last year set a goal of becoming the world leader in AI by 2030. Antony Phillipson, the U.K. Trade Commissioner for North America and Consul General in New York, said in an interview ahead of the announcement that the U.K. could not compete with China in terms of total funding or scale of some government-run AI projects.