Vanessa Ganguin’s techUK briefing on the UK’s AI growth plan and the HPI visa

16 January 2025

Launching the AI Opportunities Action Plan for the UK this week, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said Keir Starmer is “throwing the full weight of Whitehall behind this industry by agreeing to take forward all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford.” Closer inspection of the government’s response to the AI plan reveals full agreement on 49 of the 50 recommendations and, yes you guessed it, only “partial agreement” with the immigration recommendation.

Chair of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and co-founder of Entrepreneur First, Matt Clifford is one of the world’s leading investors in international talent, so it’s no surprise that his recommendations are emphatic on the importance of competing with other global innovation hubs for the next generation of human capital to fuel Britain’s AI growth.

Graduates from some leading AI institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and (since 2020) Carnegie Mellon University in the US, are not currently included in the High Potential Individual visa eligibility list. Government should take steps to develop new pathways, and strengthen existing ones, to support these graduates. It should also explore how best to address wider barriers like the cost and complexity of visas which create obstacles for startups and deter overseas talent from re-locating to the UK.

The plan’s section on talent warns: “international competition for top talent is fierce. The UK must go further than existing measures and take a more proactive approach at every stage of the talent pipeline. Though ambitious, these efforts could yield large benefits for the UK if one individual founds the next Google DeepMind or OpenAI.”

Vanessa Ganguin wrote this explainer to the proposals, the government’s reaction and how the UK’s High Potential Individual visa fits in for techUK.