Tech secretary Peter Kyle recycles old announcements at London Tech Week
Technology secretary Peter Kyle addressed London Tech Week on Tuesday, reiterating Labour’s previously announced plans for the tech sector, adding only one AI drug discovery project.
In a keynote that focused heavily on risk and innovation, Kyle said Labour was committed to “progressive change to build a modern economy and an opportunity society for Britain”.
Yet the initiatives he highlighted were merely reiterations of previous announcements.
Kyle confirmed Labour’s proposed digital and technology sector plan as part of its broader modern industrial strategy.
“For the very first time”, he claimed, “our modern industrial strategy will include a dedicated digital and technologies sector plan” – a policy first outlined earlier this year.
Kyle also repeated Labour’s support for six priority technologies, including semiconductors and AI, saying that the plan would “build upon strength in six technologies with the greatest potential for growth”.
His new announcement on the creation of OpenBind, a consortium to accelerate drug research with AI, was disappointingly the only new detail in speech otherwise focused on previously outlined reforms.
‘Digitise old maps’
On infrastructure and digital transformation, Kyle referred to a “digital driving licence, an app that will put public services into people’s hands”, and a “new tool that will digitise decades-old maps in minutes”.
These projects were previously mentioned in Labour’s digital government strategy announced in March, which came out along Peter Kyle’s pledge to strip away outdated regulations that may delay cutting edge technology.
On talent, a topic widely discussed at this year’s London Tech Week by the likes of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Pime Minister Keir Starmer, Kyle cited plans to “double the number of Encode AI science fellowships” and “launch the Turing AI global fellowships”, both of which had already been trailed in Labour’s research and innovation policy platform.
He did add that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will be investing £25m to back this AI fellowship.
The emphasis of Kyle’s address remained firmly on embracing risk. “We choose the path of progressive change”, he announced, “not the risk of doing nothing, but the risk of innovating”.
He pointed to initiatives such as AI growth zones, which – whilst anticipated – are yet to be announced, and planning systems reform, noting that “213 communities applied to be AI growth zones”, as evidence of momentum.
Asked how Labour would balance speed and responsibility, Kyle said: “There are always two risks that we face as government. There’s the risk of doing something that’s bold and fast and you get things wrong. But there’s also the other risk, which is not doing anything at all”.
A spokesperson from the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, responded by claiming : “It’s right that the Technology Secretary speaks to a technology audience about work his department is doing to support them. Not every word a minister speaks needs to be news to the world.”