In a speech at the AI Adoption Summit, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said HM Treasury is moving from strategy to implementation on AI adoption, confirming publication of sector AI adoption plans, launching an advisory AI Growth Lab and establishing the AI Economics Institute. The package is intended to remove barriers the government sees in data access, regulatory uncertainty, commercialisation and compute infrastructure, and to speed AI deployment across businesses and public services. The AI adoption plans, developed with industry AI champions, are intended as practical sector guides for businesses of different sizes. The AI Growth Lab will bring regulators together to explain how existing rules apply to emerging AI uses, starting with legal services and issues such as confidentiality, explainability and responsible deployment. A joint body of HM Treasury and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the AI Economics Institute will be chaired by Professor Simon Johnson and study AI's effects on productivity, labour markets and growth. Reeves also said the Sovereign AI Unit has made three equity investments and supported six companies through its compute offer, and that the British Business Bank will make a GBP 150 million cornerstone investment into Playgrounds Deep Technology Fund to help AI hardware firms scale. Next steps set out in the speech include autumn legislation to create powers to test innovative products and services that current regulation prohibits, publication of a Financial Services AI Adoption Plan on 14 July, launch of the tender process for a new national supercomputer in Edinburgh, and publication of a National Cyber Action Plan in June. Reeves also pointed to a GBP 400 million fund for the UK's next national AI supercomputer as part of the wider hardware plan.

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