EU Technological Sovereignty Package
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The Government have already set out their intention to use public sector buying power more strategically. The January 2025 blueprint for modern digital government noted that public sector organisations often contract locally and individually, limiting the impact of the £26 billion of annual technology spend, and committed to continue working on whole of public sector agreements. We are also developing the national cloud infrastructure programme, a strategic initiative to co-ordinate how the public sector buys cloud services. This programme will use the collective buying power of the whole of the public sector to secure better value for taxpayers, strengthen digital resilience and create new opportunities for British businesses.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister concerned about the rising pre-eminence of China in AI, with several world-class developers now there and the rapid adoption of its low-cost models across, for example, emerging economies?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
Developments in AI are incredible in many respects. That only reinforces our belief that we need to invest in the UK, not just in digital infrastructure and hardware—for example, supporting UK businesses that have unique chip capabilities—but in upskilling people in the UK to adopt AI, so that we as a country can benefit from the productivity gains and that small and large businesses can adopt AI safely and securely.