Sunak and Starmer race to update AI policy as technology surges ahead

Rishi Sunak will set out his views on artificial intelligence (AI) next week to an audience of technology industry insiders during a keynote speech at London Tech Week

- Kiran Stacey , Lisa O’Carroll

Twenty-four hours later, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, will do the same.

The prime minister and Starmer have a habit of speaking at the same venue within a day of each other they did so at the start of the year, setting out their competing visions for the country from the same room at the Olympic Park in east London.

The fact they are doing so again but on the far more technical and detailed question of artificial intelligence shows how quickly the issue has rocketed up the political agenda.

"We have been working on Al policy for a long time," said one government official. "But suddenly the interest in this work has spiked. Everyone wants to weigh in, from cabinet ministers, to industry, to academia." The shift has come from the top.

Sunak, who used to speak enthusiastically about the opportunities Al presents, has gone on something of a re-education course, meeting industry executives and issuing statements about the "existential" risks it poses.

This week, the prime minister has been in Washington, lobbying Joe Biden to put the UK at the centre of efforts to formulate a global set of principles that would govern how countries regulate the industry.

British officials argue the UK is ideally placed: London is home to Google's AI research lab Google DeepMind, and this week the technology company Palantir announced it would make the UK its European headquarters for AI development.