While AI has been identified as a key avenue for UK innovation, obstacles are holding back the emerging technology from being fully realised.

The challenges to UK innovation were revealed in Pure Storage’s report, The Innovation Race, Reducing Risk and Navigating the AI Frontier for Future Success, which provided insights from UK CIOs and senior IT leaders distilled from a global report.

The need for critical infrastructure upgrades, along with high cyber defence budgets, have hampered innovation in the UK, according to the survey.

Further, as the UK continues to grapple with the cost of living crisis, CIOs and other senior leaders are facing significant economic pressures.

Despite these challenges, driving innovation remains imperative for enterprises, with AI rapidly emerging as a key technology for business improvement.

However, navigating the complexities of AI integrations is putting a damper on what should be an AI gold rush.

The vast majority (91%) of UK IT leaders recognise AI as a substantial opportunity for transforming their organisation, with almost all UK businesses planning or adopting AI.

42% are even developing an AI first strategy, where AI is considered for every new use case.

The three main use cases identified to have the most potential include improving efficiencies and automating repetitive tasks (53%), personalising customer experience (49%), and driving decision-making with customer data (45%).

However, infrastructure, economic woes, and cyber concerns are stifling AI-led innovation.

Infrastructure Challenges

Over three quarters (78%) of IT leaders are concerned that their business’s infrastructure can’t keep up with AI.

Nearly nine in ten (88%) predict that their AI-generated data will soon outgrow their organisations current data centres, meaning that their expenditure on infrastructure will have to increase.

Budgetary constraints are expected, however, with almost half of IT budgets and 53% of IT department’s time expected to be spent on AI efforts in the next year. This will not only squeeze budgets, but require a skilled workforce that may not be possible in today’s skills shortage.

Economic Constraints 

The cost-of-living crisis continues to squeeze households and businesses, and a rise in energy costs is expected this autumn.

A third of UK businesses see rising energy costs as a threat to their ability to innovate, a challenge felt more acutely in the UK than globally.

UK IT teams are struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation, with 56% focused on keeping on the lights and firefighting – the highest among countries in the global report.

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The UK’s growing tech talent shortage is only compounding the struggle, with 37% saying its one of the greatest risks impacting their ability to innovate.

Interesting, tech debt was highlighted as a real challenge by 34% of UK IT leaders.

Cyber Threats 

About half (49%) of UK IT leaders see cyber-attacks as the biggest threat to innovation. With their high associated cost and reputational damage, cyber threats have never been a deeper concern, especially with their surge in cases.

Frustration is mounting at the high cost of cyber-attacks, with 87% of IT leaders expressing that the budget and time dedicated to preventing and dealing with cyber-threats would be better spend on innovation.

“Plagued with concerns about their infrastructure’s ability to support AI, UK IT leaders fear losing the Innovation Race,” Wes can den Berg, regional VP UK&I, Pure Storage, said.

“This research aims to help them understand all the risks to their organisation beyond the obvious cyberthreats, enabling them to prioritise and strike a balance between security and innovation. Addressing rising energy costs and assessing AI readiness with a hybrid infrastructure approach can significantly benefit their efforts to harness AI for future success.”