My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this adjourned debate on the gracious Speech. I would like to cover the area of dual-use technologies and, in doing so, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register as adviser variously to the Crown Estate, to Endava plc and to Simmons and Simmons LLP.

Dual-use technologies have become increasingly important and of interest, but it is AI that has put this on a completely different path, not least because of its omnipresence, if not as yet omnipotence, and certainly its omniapplicability. The sheer velocity and availability of AI means that dual-use technologies now need to be considered in a wholly different manner. Consider, in the past, nuclear: fortunately, still, a largely niche activity, highly technical, difficult and complex. AI, by contrast, is a very retail pursuit, available to all, bad actors as well as good. What should we consider when we look at the UK’s approach to dual-use technologies? First, we should consider the tech stack itself. How much of this should the UK develop? How much should it control? How much should it directly own? How much should it have a complete 100% grip upon?

Similarly, we should consider data. AI is nothing without data. Where is the sensitive data when it comes to dual-use technologies? Is it on-prem, in the cloud, in this country or somewhere else? Where are the people involved based? Where does their expertise come from? What are they doing, and how, when it comes to dual-use technologies? Turning to the capital, the sources of funding and indeed the whole question of investability around dual-use technologies, what is happening in terms of institutional investment and pension funds, both in terms of the possibilities for investment and the barriers and blockers to said investment?

When it comes to exports, it is easy to think that we should just reach for export bans around some of these technologies, but perhaps we should look at both sides of this and see the potential to export some of these technologies to like-minded nations, to build coalition and collectivity around such similar approaches. As for the energy used, where is it coming from? Who controls it? What level of risk is involved there?

Finally, it is well worth considering open source and the possibilities therein. I ask the Minister specifically: what have the Government learned from the Pentagon’s Project Maven? What are the lessons for the UK? Similarly, when it comes to reviewing the UK’s tech stack in AI and across all dual-use technologies, what process of decoupling, if any, are the Government currently considering? Allied to that, what premium are the Government prepared to pay when it comes to having true sovereign AI? Would it not be beneficial, around all these technologies, to have some legislation, some right-sized regulation, as set out in my AI regulation Private Member’s Bill?

To conclude, in many ways dual-use technologies shine the sharpest of spotlights on an uncomfortable truth wilfully ignored by Governments over decades, which is this: if you want peace, prepare for war—politically problematic, economically inconvenient, yet timelessly true, from Plato to NATO. Certainly, prepare for war on the battlefields, but much more than that, prepare in the boardrooms, in the data centres, in the servers and in the chips. Prepare in the cloud, prepare in the rare earth minerals and prepare under our oceans. Prepare, prepare, prepare to fight for the “we” in a sadly increasing world of “me”. Prepare if we want peace.