A prominent figure in artificial intelligence, Ken Mulvany, has called on the United Kingdom to eliminate stamp duty on share trading, reform its planning system, and reduce electricity costs to stimulate economic growth driven by AI.
Mulvany, co-founder and CEO of BenevolentAI, argued that the UK's 0.5% tax on trading domestic shares discourages investment in British technology firms. He suggested that removing this tax would signal a favorable environment for capital and encourage new tech and AI companies to seek funding within the UK. He also emphasized the importance of encouraging major UK investment funds to back domestic companies, thereby preventing promising firms and their founders from moving to the United States, where investment is often more readily accessible.
"The next generation of AI companies may need few people, but they will still need money to grow," Mulvany stated. "Britain cannot go on producing excellent science and ambitious founders only to watch their businesses leave for Boston or San Francisco at the first serious funding round."
While acknowledging that the UK cannot match the AI investment of the U.S. or China, Mulvany pointed to the nation's scientific expertise, established financial markets, and world-class universities as key assets for benefiting from increasingly affordable AI technology. However, he cautioned that these advantages are threatened by escalating energy prices and regulatory hurdles.
"Britain has some of the most expensive industrial electricity in the developed world and a grid never designed for the demand now arriving," Mulvany warned. He also highlighted the slow pace of planning regulations, which he believes hinders the development of adequate data centers essential for an AI productivity surge.
"The machinery in a data center is obsolete in three years," Mulvany explained. "A planning process that takes three years is therefore not a delay but a veto. What is needed is a presumption in favour." Mulvany, who was an early advocate for AI's productivity potential, founded BenevolentAI in 2013. The firm aims to accelerate the development of new medicines by rapidly processing extensive clinical data. BenevolentAI has previously collaborated with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and in 2020, it helped identify Baricitinib as a potential COVID-19 treatment.