As a programme, BridgeAI aims to provide £100 million in funding — which has partly come from Innovate UK and the Technologies Mission Fund (TMF) — to AI innovators to develop new, trusted AI services and technologies for businesses in four high growth potential sectors to help bolster their productivity, among other benefits.

The four sectors — agriculture, construction, transportation, and the creative industries — have been specified as areas of focus by BridgeAI due to the transformative change that could be realised with AI adoption.

The programme is also setting out to connect such businesses with AI experts, provide AI-oriented support, facilitate knowledge sharing, and upskill, as to drive growth in AI.

In a pre-recorded video played to the audience in attendance at the London launch event, Viscount Camrose — the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSIT) — introduced BridgeAI as “a fantastic new Government investment to empower UK businesses in this critical technology.”

“By stimulating the adoption of AI technologies and bridging the gap between AI adopters and developers, this programme can help increase UK productivity, and create new opportunities for businesses, jobs, and economic growth,” he continued.

“BridgeAI’s mission is to empower UK businesses operating in low-AI-maturity sectors; including agriculture, construction, creative industries, and transport, to adopt AI through multi-million-pound funding and support.”

“We’re investing in this programme because, we believe, that while so many talk about the challenges to the world of work, AI has the potential to support, enhance, and amplify the efforts of our fantastic UK businesses.”

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After Viscount Camrose, Will Drury, the Interim Executive Director Digital & Technologies at Innovate UK, provided additional context and information on the reasoning behind BridgeAI’s launch. “How do we increase adoption through our industries? That’s what this programme is seeking to address,” he said during his speech.

“We want to support developers, create easy-to-use, easily accessible, and easy-to-integrate solutions. We want to give businesses the confidence to invest.”

At a later point of his speech, Drury noted: “We’re not going to just provide funding. […] But it’s that support, that networking, the different streams of more specific activity — which will be covered today — that’s going to allow this large intervention to make a cohesive benefit to business, society, and the UK.”

To help to act on the programme’s commitments, BridgeAI will work with a network of strategic delivery partners. Key partners include the Alan Turing Institute, the Hartree Centre (STFC), and Digital Catapult.

A collaborative BridgeAI competition — “Feasibility studies for Artificial Intelligence solutions” — will also provide investment of up to £5 million for innovative AI projects that address challenges or opportunities in the four aforementioned target sectors of agriculture, construction, transportation, and the creative industries.

The unveiling of the BridgeAI programme comes just days after the UK Government announced that it has pledged an initial £100 million in funding for the soon-to-be-created UK AI Taskforce.