A new cyber security offering from the Government Digital Service (GDS) and AI tools to support energy and infrastructure projects are to be made available to government bodies.
The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has announced the move as part of a “wholesale reshaping” of government digital services, in advance of publishing State of Digital Government Report this week.
It also follows last week’s announcement by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of a major push on the development and usage of AI tools in public services.
DSIT said the GDS service will search for vulnerabilities across the public sector that hackers could use to shut down essential services and stop citizens accessing critical support.
Support will then help different organisations fix these issues and make the UK more resilient to cyber attacks.
Speeding up energy queue
The energy AI tool will be named Connect and aimed at speeding up the queue to connect clean energy projects, such as those using wind and solar farms to the national grid and will support the work of the newly announced AI Energy Council.
The team behind it – which has input from the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator – is exploring how it could be applied to better match energy generation projects to grid capacity where it is available.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “This innovative use of AI could help us clean up the queue and slash waiting times to hook important energy projects up to the electricity grid, which is key to delivering our clean power by 2030 mission.
“The sooner we can get more homegrown renewable energy onto the grid, the quicker we can deliver on our Plan for Change and homes and businesses can benefit from a new era of clean electricity.”
Infrastructure analysis
The infrastructure AI tool, named Scout, has been developed to automatically analyse thousands of documents to help detect problems earlier and enable timely interventions to keep projects on track.
It will replace manual processes in which up to 150 reports and documents are reviewed. This is promised to cut the processing times from several hours to a matter of minutes and remove the risk of crucial details being glossed over.
Its analytical process stringent guidelines set by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
The report will bemoan the existing state of government digital services, saying that this is leading to the loss of £45 billion per year in potential productivity savings.