The writer is the UK government’s former chief digital and data officer and a founding partner at Public Digital
The UK is starting the race for digital sovereignty in the artificial intelligence era from a weakened position. After decades of outsourcing our data, skills and capacity, we have an unwieldy, expensive state that is reliant on a spaghetti of monopoly and oligopoly overseas supply chains. Big IT contracts have put up barriers to national innovation while services struggle to serve, let alone innovate — just ask the sub-postmasters.
This means we are now at risk of relinquishing control of an important new technology to monopolist international platforms. The Treasury’s approach to tech contracts has traditionally been limited to a narrow selection of big deals with chosen suppliers. This has throttled opportunities to support domestic start-up growth. Despite a laudable commitment to a 10-year infrastructure investment and the development of AI zones, the UK may end up building the foundations for other countries’ successful technologies.