Who controls the machines, and the UK’s national AI institute on risk

Control of computing power

A data centre on British soil does not, by itself, put its computing power under British control. The Government’s AI Growth Zones offer faster planning, grid priority and cheaper electricity, but ask nothing in return about emergency access, customers or military use. In June 2026 a US government directive switched off two AI models for every user outside the United States. See Who controls the data.

The Alan Turing Institute on frontier AI risk

In September 2026 the UK’s national institute for AI found broad agreement that catastrophic AI risk is a realistic possibility in the short to medium term. It warned that relying on a few AI providers and data centres could turn a single failure into a crisis across many services, and that a “kill switch” is not a simple answer. See AI and the precautionary principle.

New questions

Seven new questions, to the Minister for AI and the Welsh Government, are in the questions tracker.