The UK tries to shape the AI world order — again

Politico

10-03-2025

With help from John Hendel
Not that long ago, with the world panicking about potential runaway AI, the U.K. stepped up to lead on reining in the new technology.
Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak convened an AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park — the first major global AI policy summit anywhere — featuring former Vice President Kamala Harris touting the risks of algorithmic bias in the technology.
What a difference an election — or two — makes.
With President Donald Trump's White House all-in on accelerating AI technology and dropping safety regulations, and a fresh Labour government in the U.K. anxious to keep good relations with the United States, a new AI world order is quickly emerging — one that Britain wants to help build.
During his recent visit to the White House, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer previewed a tech-focused deal between the two nations — in language that seemed very tuned to a pitch Vice President JD Vance had just made at the Paris AI Action Summit.
Now, our POLITICO U.K. colleague Tom Bristow has gotten a peek at a British government document with new details of London's ideas for a trade pact with the U.S. It offers a look at how a new global AI consensus could take shape — with much less worry about safety, and much more concern about security and tech dominance.
What's in the document? The paper outlines the pitch the U.K. plans to make to the U.S., and it echoes rhetoric used by Vance and Trump that countries must choose whether to side with or against the U.S. on tech policy. It talks about combining British and American 'strengths' so that Western democracies can win the tech race — language that British Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has increasingly started to use in recent weeks — and signals ever-closer alignment with the U.S. on tech.
The document outlines Britain's ambitions for an 'economic partnership' on technology. It pitches the case by pointing out that the U.S. and U.K. are the only two allies in the world with trillion-dollar tech industries, and emphasizes the importance of Western democracies beating rivals to cutting-edge breakthroughs.
It leans into 'moonshot missions' in three areas relevant to national security — AI, quantum and space — as an initial phase of the deal, but doesn't go into detail. It also mentions collaboration on R&D, talent and procurement without going into the terms. British officials see it as a long-term play, with this document reflecting its early pitch.
What is not in there? Britain's pitch avoids mention of thorny issues like tariffs and regulation. Tariffs could come to a head as soon as Wednesday, when 25 percent steel and aluminum tariffs are due to come into effect. U.K. negotiators are pressing for a last-minute exemption.
Also not in it: There is nothing in the document on nearer-term wins like a data deal, a digital trade agreement or specific investments. But by discussing procurement, the British pitch document opens the door to deals between the U.K. government and U.S. tech firms. Both Scale AI and Anthropic are hiring U.K. staff to sell their technology to the public sector.
And a national rebrand: Republicans and friendly Big Tech executives have attacked the U.K. and Europe's content moderation regulation as 'censorship'. In late February, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio sent Britain a sternly worded letter over its Online Safety Act. Activists in the U.K. fear London will water down the law to secure a deal with the U.S., despite the government insisting it is not up for negotiation.
To sidestep the issue, Britain is pitching its legislation to the White House as a move against pedophiles, terrorists and online criminals rather than anything to do with freedom of speech.
(While the pitch document has little to say about the Online Safety Act, the law is already making an impact in Britain: from Monday, companies will be required to remove illegal content or risk high fines. Kyle, the tech secretary, told LBC radio Monday he's already thinking of additional legislation and pushed back against suggestions that the U.S. might force the U.K. to water down its tech legislation. 'Our online safety standards are not up for negotiation,' he said.)
Have we seen this before? The pitch echoes some of the Atlantic Declaration that Sunak and former President Joe Biden signed in June 2023. That agreement resolved to 'to partner to build resilient, diversified, and secure supply chains and reduce strategic dependencies.' The latest iteration drops clean energy and health from the agenda.
Where do we go from here? Nothing in the deal is final or public, and it may take months for London and Washington to find agreement.
Some British observers are getting nervous their government may roll over too fast to American tech interests. Last week the BBC wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the U.K. antitrust regulator, asking it to intervene so Apple and Google have less of a chokehold on app stores and cautioning that the companies' use of AI could bite into the BBC's bottom line.
The complaint came days after the CMA closed an inquiry into Microsoft and OpenAI's partnership.
And the deal could spell trouble for Brussels. Alongside his note to London, House Judiciary Chair Jordan also sent a howler to the EU over its Digital Services Act, which he called 'censorship'. Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr blasted the DSA last week in a speech before Barcelona's Mobile World Congress. Trump has threatened to hit the U.K. and the EU with retaliatory tariffs for tech regulation he believes might unfairly target U.S. tech companies.
Brussels tech chief Henna Virkkunen defended the EU's regulation, saying it was 'content-agnostic'. But if the U.K. offers to slim down its tech rules to please Washington, Europe will be left to make its defense alone.
CALL WAITING
Robert Heinlein's old adage that 'the moon is a harsh mistress' proved especially true for Nokia this month. The telecom company's Bell Labs division has been attempting to make the first cellular phone call on the moon as part of a partnership with NASA but sadly fell short during a recent lunar mission.
'Unfortunately, Nokia was unable to make the first cellular call on the Moon due to factors beyond our control that resulted in extreme cold temperatures on our user device modules,' Noka wrote in an update over the weekend.
Still, Nokia 'delivered the first cellular network to the Moon and validated key aspects of the network's operation,' the company added. It argued the mission entailed 'important steps toward proving that cellular technologies can meet the mission-critical communications needs of future lunar missions and space exploration.'
NASA gave a fuller breakdown of the lunar mission on Friday.
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Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson ([e-mail]); Mohar Chatterjee ([e-mail]); Steve Heuser ([e-mail]); Nate Robson ([e-mail]); Daniella Cheslow ([e-mail]); and Christine Mui ([e-mail]).