The government's Integrated Review comes at a time of considerable technological change. The UK has entered a'Fourth Industrial Revolution' (4IR), which promises to'fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another'. This new era will be characterised by scientific breakthroughs in fields such as the Internet of Things, Blockchain, quantum computing, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI), which together are expected to deliver transformational changes across almost every sector of the economy. Of particular note are recent developments in AI, specifically advances in the sub-field of machine learning. Progress over the last decade has been driven by an exponential growth in computing power, coupled with increased availability of vast datasets with which to train machine learning algorithms. While machine learning technology can be traced back to at least the 1950s, investment has increased substantially in recent years, and as a result AI is rapidly becoming ubiquitous across the economy.

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was coined by John McCarthy in 1956. AI is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages." Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. AI is increasingly being used in the defence sector to boost the military capabilities in many developing nations of the world. In a December 2019 strategic research paper entitled, "A Candle in the Dark: US National Security Strategy for Artificial Intelligence", Stephen Rodriguez and Tate Nurkin shed more light on this aspect.