Gloucestershire can drive forward ambitions to make UK a global superpower in AI

A University of Gloucestershire Artificial Intelligence expert is backing the county to be a cornerstone in powering the Government’s ambitious plans to make the UK an AI global superpower.

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, wants to establish the UK as a global superpower in Artificial Intelligence (AI) through building sufficient, secure and sustainable AI infrastructure, developing AI Growth Zones and creating a strong talent pipeline to address wider skills demands.

The University’s Dr Will Sayers, whose research focuses on how AI can help solve real-world problems, believes the Government’s ambitious plans will bring further investment and create more jobs within Gloucestershire’s thriving cyber community.

In December last year, the Director of GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler, officially opened the University’s new £5.8 million centre of excellence for cyber and digital in Cheltenham, cementing the region’s role as the cyber capital of the UK.

Funded by the Office for Students, the new centre – FuturePark – has been developed in consultation with CyNam, Hub8, and Plexal, and offers state-of-the-art equipment and technology that will benefit local businesses and community organisations.

Among the benefits delivered by FuturePark for students are guest lectures by high-profile visitors from industry, including recent presentations by Chris Dunning-Walton (CyNam) and technology leader Mark Adams.

Dr Sayers (pictured left) said: “The Government’s ambitious plans around AI are extremely welcome and timely because there’s no doubt that AI-powered technology is going to have massive impact on the way we live our lives.

“It’s already supporting improvements in healthcare, pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery in universities and creating exciting new companies that bring economic benefits to the UK.

“Following the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, it’s extremely positive that everything is set up for Gloucestershire to lead the way in driving forward the Government’s ambition for the UK to become a global superpower in AI.

“Gloucestershire is an amazingly active hub of cyber technology with lots of institutions, including University of Gloucestershire, involved in developing new technology, and we’re ideally positioned to benefit from national investment in a way that means our established cyber companies will be able to develop new partnerships with other organisations working on AI.

“Equally, there might be more opportunities for start-ups in the region to thrive, which will bring more economic benefits and new jobs, so the future looks extremely bright in terms of Gloucestershire’s role in driving forward the Government’s ambitious plans.”

Future of AI is beyond our current understanding

AI is already used in a range of common everyday activities such as online shopping, using satellite navigation systems in motor vehicles, and asking smart speakers to play music or to find information.

Dr Sayers, Associate Head of the University’s School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences, said the technology had grown in prominence more recently because of the impact of large language models, such as ChatGPT, that can carry out tasks such as generating speeches, essays and poems.

Dr Sayers said: “At the most basic level, AI systems predict the next word that’s likely to come in a sentence – predictive text – but by training them very carefully and structuring them in such a way that they can respond to questions, they can generate complex text so it almost feels like you’re talking to a person.

“Even though the technology has been around in different forms for a very long time, at the moment it is still at the beginning of what possible.

“If you imagine different kinds of innovative technology before, for example mobile phones, nobody knew where they were going to go when they first came out, but they became popular very quickly and now we can use them to do a range of things such as shopping online, manage our bank accounts, watch videos and listen to music.

“Artificial Intelligence is massively powerful and is already making significant changes to the way we live our lives, but the changes coming in the future will be even greater and beyond our current understanding and knowledge.”