Tech partnership can make US, UK economies great again

Those who enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s 2023 blockbuster film “Oppenheimer” will recall the intensive scientific collaboration and advancement — from Cambridge, England, to Los Alamos, New Mexico — that resulted in the Allied powers winning the race to develop the atomic bomb. Anglo-American partnership on this most lethal of deterrents deepened further in 1962, when over three days in the Bahamas President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan mapped out the Polaris Sales Agreement, which to this day underpins the nuclear umbrella the U.S. and U.K. provide its people and its allies. 

These historic technological partnerships – for all their destructive might – ultimately allowed us to secure a technological edge over our adversaries and bring an end to the tyranny and slaughter of the Second World War. Thereafter, the nuclear deterrent delivered an unprecedented period of stability for our nations that underwrote decades of rampant economic growth. An exemplar of peace through strength.

American and British science cooperation – ever restless - went on to deliver the technology upon which all contemporary commerce, communication and defense is based: the internet. 

We don’t need another deterrent, but there are major life-enhancing and lifesaving advances to which we need to put our minds. The biggest immediate example is artificial intelligence (AI). We stand at the foothills of this next great foundational technology that will redefine the century ahead, accelerating every other endeavor and discovery we want to undertake.

I will join many of Britain’s greatest AI innovators and investors this week in California for the Global Tech Conference, the world’s premier AI gathering. Of the many issues we will discuss with our U.S. and allied counterparts, I expect a central theme to dominate: the strategic technology rivalry between us and our adversaries.

Once more, we must combine our strengths to keep our citizens ahead in the global race. Our two science-rich nations, the U.S. and U.K., are the only two Western countries with trillion-dollar technology eco-systems. Our combined research and innovation prowess (the U.S. and U.K. are home to the world’s top 15 universities) arguably remains our greatest defense of the values and freedoms we cherish.

The challenges we face today are as profound as any we have confronted together in our past. Yet so are the opportunities.

Many governments are focused on the risks and the dangers of AI’s unknown powers, which we must be alert to. But too few are investing enough energy into unlocking the enormous life improving potential AI can unleash, from health and education to the security of our people.  

And as with Manhattan and Polaris, the U.S. and UK are natural allies to work together to deliver generational advances. Our two governments should steer, facilitate and empower our world-leading scientists and industries to maximize the positive outcomes technology holds. 

We are at a genuine inflection point. Now is the moment to back the innovators at the tech frontier. Instead of over-regulating these new technologies, our two governments stand ready to enable and seize the almost unimaginable benefits they offer.

The fair exchange of manufactured products is, and will remain, important to both the U.S. and U.K. economies. But the trade agreement Prime Minster Starmer and President Trump left the West Wing seeking a few weeks ago imagines a much broader and future-focused collaboration that looks well beyond goods and services to a full spectrum technology partnership between Britain and America.

I am excited by the breakthroughs such a partnership could accelerate together. In biotech, there is huge potential in genomics, protein design and engineering. Artificial intelligence could enable earlier and more precise diagnosis, better drug discovery and personalized cancer vaccines. We are determined to build advanced data centers and develop the world’s first advanced quantum computer. And there are opportunities to collaborate in advancing nuclear technology.

These are just a few areas in which the U.S. and U.K. could create moonshot achievements. Our vision for this partnership should span a range of possibilities, on Earth and in space.

In an era of heightened competition and contest, we cannot afford to stand still. It is vital that our great democracies adapt to counter new threats, retain the edge over our adversaries and embrace new opportunities across critical advanced technologies to improve the daily lives of all our citizens.

As closely allied democracies, America and Britian can achieve more together than they can do apart. That is why a technology partnership needs to be at the heart of any U.S.-U.K. economic deal. We need to think MEGA — Make our Economies Great Again — for all our prosperity and security.

Peter Mandelson is the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.