Industrial strategy: Takeaways for UK tech innovations
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Labour wants to put the UK at the forefront of tech innovation. Its industrial strategy offers a funding boost for tech and lighter-touch regulation
Labour’s 10-year industrial strategy, launched today, includes measures the government hopes will boost the UK’s tech sector. These include a lighter-touch regulatory environment to support frontier technologies and cutting the administrative costs of regulation by 25% by the end of the current Parliament.
As part of a £22.6bn annual increase in research and development spending by 2029-30, the strategy includes more than £2bn of funding to support the government’s 50-point plan of action for AI and £2.8bn for advanced manufacturing over the next 10 years.
The strategy outlines the Labour government’s plan to promote business investment and growth, and make it quicker, easier and cheaper to do business in the UK.
Announcing the strategy, prime minister Keir Starmer said: “This industrial strategy marks a turning point for Britain’s economy and a clear break from the short-termism and sticking plasters of the past.
“In an era of global economic instability, it delivers the long-term certainty and direction British businesses need to invest, innovate and create good jobs that put more money in people’s pockets as part of the Plan for Change.”
Quantum, chips and comms
By 2035, the government wants the UK to have developed quantum computers capable of outperforming conventional supercomputers. As part of a £670m package of funding to accelerate the UK’s quantum computing capabilities, Labour announced 10-year funding for the National Quantum Computing Centre, providing what the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) describes as “long-term certainty to researchers that marks Britain as the place to do business when it comes to cutting edge tech”.
There is also a boost to the semiconductor sector. Backed by up to £19m of funding, the industrial strategy includes setting up a UK semiconductor centre that will serve as a single point of contact for global firms and governments to engage with the UK semiconductor sector. DSIT said the centre would help ambitious firms to scale up, form new partnerships and strengthen the UK’s role in global supply chains – helping to grow the economy.
Funding of £35m has also been earmarked for the recently announced Semiconductor Talent Expansion Programme – including new chip design courses for students, bursaries, schools outreach and a proposed master’s conversion course to help more people move into the sector.
Telecommunications and connectivity will also get a £370m investment – comprising £240m for advanced connectivity research and development, and £130m to strengthen the capabilities of the UK Telecoms Lab – to enhance the security and reliability of the UK’s networks. As part of the improvement to infrastructure, the government has also said it will be spending £41m to introduce low-Earth-orbit satellites to cover all mainline trains.
AI and data
One of the areas the government wants to unlock is capitalising on the value of UK data by treating it as an economic asset. The industrial strategy covers Labour’s ambitions to enable the use of high-quality data across the private and public sectors, extending smart data initiatives with £36m of funding, and establishing a clear framework to value and license public sector data assets.
The strategy aims to treat data as a modern economic, financial and social asset, creating the conditions for investment in data and ensuring its value is realised directly and across the economy. One of Labour’s objectives is to offer greater access to data for artificial intelligence (AI) through the National Data Library, which is being set up with £100m of funding.
As part of its goal to support the creative sector while encouraging the growth of AI, the industrial strategy establishes a Creative Content Exchange (CCE), which the government said will serve as a trusted marketplace for selling, buying, licensing and enabling permitted access to digitised cultural and creative assets. The goal is to offer new revenue streams for content owners to commercialise and financialise their assets while providing data users with ease of access.
The industrial strategy also stipulates that businesses and the public sector will need to have the tools, infrastructure and capabilities to unlock data’s financial, economic and societal benefits. As such, there is £12m of funding going into the UK Data Sharing Infrastructure Initiatives from April 2026, which aim to promote effective and more coordinated approaches to governance, legal considerations, regulations, data interoperability, security and trust.
The government said it also wants to support the development of data and content marketplaces or exchanges that will establish UK markets for data to secure a competitive advantage for businesses, innovators and creators.
Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle said: “Britain is full of ambitious risk-takers driven by a desire to innovate and improve people’s everyday lives. It is on us in government to match that boldness by investing in our country’s immense potential and embracing businesses who can drive that change and grow our economy.”
