Industry chiefs have urged construction companies to make the most of the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence (AI), after the government pledged to make the UK a “world leader” in the technology.
Key figures said AI could improve many elements of the building process and potentially allow smoother, safer, cheaper projects.
“Construction has a significant part to play in building the facilities, the networks and the infrastructure set out in the government’s AI plan”
Suzannah Nichol, Build UK
They spoke out after prime minister Keir Starmer declared last month that AI would “drive incredible change”. He backed almost all 50 recommendations in an independently created blueprint for developing the technology.
The government said it was “committed” to drawing up a 10-year investment roadmap to boost the roll-out of intelligent computing.
Two days after Starmer’s speech, the government’s Innovate UK agency announced a 14-week AI technology accelerator programme to address “critical challenges” for construction startups and SMEs. Applications opened on 21 January, with notification of successful projects due on 21 March.
Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) director of operations Marie-Claude Hemming said AI “has the potential to radically transform the UK infrastructure sector”. But she added that this relied on the industry being “primed to take full advantage”.
Hemming added: “We have been working with our members to understand both the risks and opportunities AI might offer, and how its successful roll-out can speed up infrastructure delivery, optimise planning and boost economic growth.”
The trade body plans to publish a report on AI in the coming months and hold a conference on the topic.
CECA chief executive Alasdair Reisner said the technology could speed up the design and cost estimation stages of projects in particular. “Historically, designing a structure would call upon the knowledge of the human doing the task but AI can crunch decades of data, all the standards and best practice and start to produce designs based on those options,” he said. “It can do a lot of work quickly even if a human is still needed at some stage in the process.
“If man and machine can work together then they can pick up each other’s errors and there is the potential, if it is done well, to improve safety and all other areas of construction.”
He added that use of historic project data could create an AI model to produce quick cost and programme estimates and keep them live throughout projects.
Reisner said AI should lower the cost of construction but he called for companies to ensure they had a “clear plan” for implementing the technology. “You could expose yourself to massive risk by not knowing what is going on in your business,” he said.
Suzannah Nichol, chief executive of Build UK, said there was “huge potential” for the use of AI in construction.
This ranged from “very simple [uses] such as record keeping” to “use of building information modelling on creating the Golden Thread” of safety and operational information, she added.
“We know that AI can also help resolve the complex construction challenges we face and keep track of our smart buildings and infrastructure,” said Nichol.
“The challenge is that industry is doing some great work but much of it is in pockets… the real opportunity is for us to identify where AI is making a difference and implement it at scale and at pace.
“Construction also has a significant part to play in building the facilities, the networks and the infrastructure set out in the government’s AI plan.
“Aligning its ambitious plans with the eagerly awaited infrastructure strategy would be a good step forward in enabling businesses to plan for their future workload and ensure we have the right skills in place. As ever, delivery is key and converting policy and plans into actions that make a difference is essential if we are to make the transition from talking about the potential and actually realising the opportunities set out.”
In his AI Opportunities Action Plan, chair of talent investor Entrepreneur First Matt Clifford called for the government to “commit to securing the physical infrastructure and human capital” necessary for use of the technology to become “widespread”.
He added: “AI offers opportunities we can’t let slip through our fingers, and these steps put us on the strongest possible footing to ensure AI delivers in all corners of the country, from building skills and talent to revolutionising our infrastructure and compute power.”
The government said the investment in AI, announced by three leading technology firms to coincide with the backing of the Action Plan, would deliver more than 13,000 jobs in the UK.
Vantage Data Centres will lead the charge, investing £12bn in data centres across the UK.
Nscale said it had purchased a site in Loughton, Essex, for its first UK data centre, which could be live in 2026 and house up to 45,000 modern graphics processing units. The firm said this project would create 500 construction jobs. It also intends to start building “multiple modular UK-based data centres” later this year.
US-based Kyndryl announced plans to create up to 1,000 AI-related jobs in Liverpool over the next three years through a new tech hub.
Ministers also said they would establish AI Growth Zones, starting in Oxfordshire, to speed up planning proposals and build more of the infrastructure needed for the technology to thrive.
Elsewhere, the government said it intends to boost public computing capacity twentyfold, including with the creation of a new supercomputer. A National Data Library will be established to safely and securely unlock the value of public data and support AI.
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Greg Pitcher