{"text":[[{"start":10.85,"text":"Chip building and drones will be at the heart of Andy Burnham’s drive to “reindustrialise” Britain, the minister for AI has said, insisting that the technology would be “front and centre” in the new prime minister’s plan."}],[{"start":23.45,"text":"But Kanishka Narayan told the FT that the government rejected “tech boosterism” and would act through regulation and other measures to deal with AI’s “material risks” to jobs and national security. "}],[{"start":36.4,"text":"Narayan, in his first interview since Burnham promoted him to the cabinet, said he wanted crucial emerging technologies to remain under British control and was “learning the lessons of the past” when nascent companies had been sold off. "}],[{"start":49.7,"text":"On replacing Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader, Burnham said he wanted to “reindustrialise” Britain and rejected “wrong turns in the 1980s”. "}],[{"start":58.800000000000004,"text":"Narayan, whose role as AI minister under Starmer was more junior, said Burnham’s was not a “backward-looking vision” and that AI was “the way to reindustrialise this country”."}],[{"start":69.55000000000001,"text":"He said he was “focused on AI chips being built here” because hardware was “where most of the economic value, most of the leverage and most of the supply chain constraint is. It’s also what the British public wants to reindustrialise”. AI-powered drones would be a crucial part of “modern re-industrialisation in the defence context”, he added. "}],[{"start":89.35000000000001,"text":"To understand Burnham’s vision, “we should think about chip factories. We should think about drones and defence and we should think about AI being applied to run manufacturing processes better,” he said. “AI is going to be pretty front and centre.” "}],[{"start":104.7,"text":"Narayan, 36, also said he would use his seat at the top table to fight for state investment in AI, visas for top engineers and planning reform to speed up the building of technology infrastructure. "}],[{"start":117.95,"text":"Tech companies have reacted with dismay to Burnham’s decision to abolish the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which was set up in 2023 by then Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak as part of the “science superpower” push. "}],[{"start":132.9,"text":"Asked about the Whitehall shake-up, Narayan said “human agency” was more important than structures and noted that the prime minister saw AI as a way for Britain to “get its mojo back”. "}],[{"start":143.35,"text":"“We are going to be the best, fastest partners to tech investors and others wanting to do business and create jobs in the UK,” he added."}],[{"start":151.65,"text":"Britain has limited chip manufacturing capabilities and Narayan acknowledged that a shift in approach was “not going to be overnight”. "}],[{"start":159.65,"text":"But he insisted that building on the UK’s “amazing strengths in chip design . . . I would love for Britain to be a place where we are able to build a manufacturing ambition focused on AI chips as well.” "}],[{"start":170.75,"text":"In June, the government announced it would invest £1.1bn in AI hardware, including a £150mn advance commitment to buy new chips from British groups. Narayan said he wanted to ensure “British companies can get first dibs at being able to sell so that they can grow”."}],[{"start":188.2,"text":"After the US government’s shock decision last month to issue export controls on Anthropic’s Mythos model, Narayan said AI was “now the central faultline in geopolitics and . . . our way into it has to be to build our own capabilities so we have leverage”."}],[{"start":203.5,"text":"The lesson from the affair, he added, was not to be “either deeply starry-eyed or deeply blurry-eyed about our relationship with the US — it’s about being most clear-eyed about how we’re going to build British capabilities so we can build appropriate alliances internationally”."}],[{"start":220.6,"text":"He pointed to Arm, the Cambridge-based chip designer now owned by Japan’s SoftBank and listed in New York. Asked if he would act to stop such companies being sold abroad in the future, Narayan said he welcomed foreign investment but wanted “the bulk of the economic value, the bulk of the strategic value and the jobs to stay here in the UK.” "}],[{"start":240.25,"text":"He added: “We can’t have a situation where the best shots that we have at large-scale economic value and strategic leverage for this country are started here, initially scaled here but ultimately supported elsewhere.” "}],[{"start":252.75,"text":"With a backlash against AI mounting on both sides of the political spectrum in the US and concern rising in the UK, Narayan said British voters were “right to be worried about the risks . . . And so I absolutely reject tech boosterism that says ‘this is a one-way upside opportunity’.”"}],[{"start":271.5,"text":"OpenAI this week said one of its models had broken out of a testing environment and hacked into a start-up, in one of the first public examples of a cyber attack by an AI system acting outside human control."}],[{"start":283.85,"text":"Asked about the incident, Narayan said there were “some very material risks in terms of AI security, there are material risks in terms of potential impact on jobs, there are material national security risks”. "}],[{"start":296.70000000000005,"text":"The government would act to mitigate risks, he added, with the aim of “creating more industrial jobs for kids in the future” and boosting public trust in technology “because it’s been built here and built by them”. "}],[{"start":308.45000000000005,"text":"Additional reporting by Tim Bradshaw"}],[{"start":320.30000000000007,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1785046807_8414.mp3"}