Scotland is open for business as a world-leading destination for developing ethical artificial intelligence (AI), innovation minister Richard Lochhead has told investors and senior industry figures.

Hosting the CogX fringe event at Scotland House London, the minister highlighted the supportive environment he says is being developed to foster the industry. This includes £24 million Scottish Government strategic investment in The Data Lab, a dedicated innovation centre for data and AI. It also serves as the home of the Scottish AI Alliance, which is meant to deliver the vision of Scotland’s AI Strategy.

Mr. Lochhead also officially opened the University of Glasgow’s new Centre for Data Science and AI earlier this week, which has been launched in a bid to tackle key global challenges through the innovative technologies.

“We are working to make Scotland a world leader in the development and use of artificial intelligence in a way which is trustworthy, ethical and inclusive,” he said. “We are, first and foremost, a land of invention, a pioneer in technology and an ideal place to invest and grow an AI business.

“Scotland gets AI. Our universities’ AI research and teaching has been ranked as world-class since the early formation of the sector, while Edinburgh was recently ranked the UK’s most “AI ready” city in the UK.

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“Scotland is an outward-looking nation and is open for business. While rising to the challenges of this rapidly-evolving technology, we are also embracing the unprecedented economic opportunity it presents – just as we did for previous scientific and industrial revolutions.”

Earlier in the summer, Lochhead addressed the Chamber, raising doubts surrounding the UK’s current non-statutory approach to AI regulations. While he did not support the introduction of what he called “unnecessary red tape,” the innovation minister did say that “we do have a duty to create the right supportive environment for business to thrive, and also for citizens to be protected.”

However, most of these protective powers are left up to the UK government, including: “data protection consumer protection; equality and human rights; employment regulations; medical devices regulations; telecommunications; financial services; self-driving cars – they’re all reserved matters to the UK government.”

Lochhead did state back in June that he intended to write to the UK government in a bid to generate a more open dialogue between Parliament and the devolved administrations surrounding innovation, technology, and business regulations.

The Scottish government launched its own AI strategy in March 2021, which aims for Scotland to be a leader in trustworthy, ethical, and inclusive AI.