The UK government has been advised that it cannot rely on allies when it comes to guaranteeing tech sovereignty. The US administration’s decision to restrict Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) models was used in a report by the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee to show the precarious position the UK finds itself in concerning sovereign tech capabilities.
The Science diplomacy: Sovereignty, strategy, and the global race report pointed out the shortcomings of the government’s interpretation of sovereignty as leverage – where the UK can possess a sovereign capability without owning the entire technology stack. It stated that the US government’s move to place export controls on Anthropic’s latest AI models effectively bans non-US citizens from access, and subsequently restricts access to OpenAI’s latest models to a small group of US companies and organisations approved by the Trump administration.
The report also noted that heightened geopolitical pressure and wars in Ukraine and Iran have led Nato allies in Europe and Canada to increase defence expenditure to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). The commercial use of AI and autonomous drone technology in warfare has seen a substantial boost in venture capital for defence tech startups in the US and Europe. The report stated that investment is going into AI, quantum computing, biotech and robotics, which is driving economic growth and military dominance.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, said: “The UK is in the premier division of science and the premier division for diplomacy, but we don’t know where we stand in the field of science diplomacy. As geopolitics is turned upside down and the world becomes increasingly competitive, we must be able to leverage our world-class science and research to advance our diplomatic and economic goals. Without a clear plan, the government will be unable to achieve this.”
The government needs a realistic plan to achieve sovereign capabilities in critical areas or risk having its access cut off at the whim of its partners Chi Onwurah, Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
The report warned that the UK government has not articulated a coherent strategic framework setting out priority partners, technologies or intended outcomes of its science and tech partnerships, while its approach to specialisation in key sectors such as space and quantum remains unclear.
Like other reports that have covered challenges in growing UK startups, this report blames a lack of specialist funds, a lack of growth-stage lead investors, and the size of the UK market for promising scientific and technological breakthroughs to seek commercialisation overseas.
“Alongside this lack of strategy and limited ability to commercialise, the UK’s traditionally open approach to international collaboration has not been matched by a sufficiently robust framework for managing the associated risks, and the government’s approach to research security does not currently provide a sufficiently clear or effective framework to protect UK intellectual property and safeguard research from exploitation by hostile actors,” the report stated.
According to Onwurah, the lack of a clear strategy undermines the UK’s tech sovereignty. “There is a global race for sovereignty in technologies like AI, whether the government recognises it or not, and leverage may not be sufficient to achieve this. The government needs a realistic plan to achieve sovereign capabilities in critical areas or risk having its access cut off at the whim of its partners,” she said.
“I hope the incoming administration will learn from the mistakes of its predecessors and move quickly to create a clear plan for how it will work internationally on science and technology. Without this, we risk falling even further behind in the global race for science and technology capability, undermining our economic prosperity and national security.”
