Brits are set to head to the polls on July 4, and tech executives have been calling on the two main political parties to push for economic growth, an accommodating regulatory environment, and a long-term vision to cement the U.K.'s leading global position.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak , leader of the incumbent Conservatives, and opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer of the Labour Party. The politicians traded barbs in their first head-to-head debate on Tuesday ahead of the July 4 General Election.LONDON — British technology executives and entrepreneurs want the next government to focus on promoting skills around the development and use of artificial intelligence and growth-oriented fiscal measures.
Innovation is heading very quickly towards autonomous AI. We need to have the skills in this country ... to be able to adopt and use it in a responsible way, with the right controls and protocols.World Tour London, a tech conference where the U.S. enterprise software giant hosts several major customers and partners, promoting growth and prosperity with new technologies like AI was a key theme.
Matthew Houlihan, senior director of government and corporate affairs for U.K. and Europe at U.S. enterprise tech firm Cisco, said the next government should seek to make the country a leader in innovation and emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing. The writers of the letter say that the U.K. economy has suffered from a decade of stagnation amid a lack of both political stability and a consistent economic strategy.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt during a visit to BAE Systems on March 25, 2024 in Barrow-in-Furness, England."In the last two years, both parties have materially converged in terms of the fact that businesses are important for the country's growth — business is important, fintech is important, entrepreneurship is important," Rishi Khosla, CEO of British digital bank OakNorth, told CNBC.