Ashurst joins major cross-sector consortium to deliver AI-driven data access platform
28 July 2020
Led by RegTech platform company RegulAItion, the AIR Platform will develop and deploy next year as a privacy preserving, data access and data collaboration platform that will transform how industries, regulators and legislators operate and interact with each other locally and globally.
Backed by Government funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and private investment, the AIR Platform is being developed in conjunction with the consortium which includes Ashurst, the Financial Conduct Authority, two international banks, Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, Wilson Wright Accounting and Tax Practice, University College London and Loughborough University.
The AIR Platform, and consortium, followed a government innovation funding service competition held in December 2019 through UK Research and Innovation. Focused on enhancing the UK’s pre-eminent position in the service industries sector, key players in the business and technology worlds debated some of the most significant data challenges being faced today and explored solutions to develop next generation services.
ReguAItion's CEO, Sally Sfeir-Tait commented:
“Our vision for the AIR Platform is to provide the digital infrastructure required for scalable, automated, repeatable, and responsible data-access, supporting the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the UK's leading position in it.”
“We’re facing the perfect storm; there is simply more data in the world than we can handle, it is suffocating businesses, industries and regulators. Equally, data silos mean organisations are unable to develop meaningful solutions, and privacy concerns such as GDPR and commercial interests stand in the way of delivering collaborative efforts to share knowledge from data.
“Tackling these challenges as individual businesses or sectors is not only prohibitive but also limiting in terms of what can be achieved that is of real value. However, a collaborative, sector-agnostic approach driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning and other analytical technologies can work. The AIR Platform will be that generational breakthrough.”
Tara Waters, partner and head of Ashurst Advance Digital, said:
“Progress requires collaboration—but the current regulatory environment makes collaboration a challenge for many business. The AIR Platform addresses these challenges and, in doing so, has the power to unleash a wave of data-driven innovation across a range of industries. For service industries in particular, where knowledge and expertise forms the core of our business, solutions like the AIR Platform will enable us to deliver that knowledge in a more meaningful way to a wider range of people and for the benefit of all.”
Stephen Browning, Challenge Director, Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Next-Generation Services, commented:
“A common hurdle when trying to develop and apply AI solutions is accessing data, often across organisational boundaries. This is particularly true in regulated sectors such as Legal, Accountancy and Insurance where concern for the privacy of client data is paramount. The AIR Platform project has the potential to overcome some of these issues and unlock the potential of applying AI to Professional and Financial Services and I’m excited to see what this project can deliver in privacy enhancing data solutions.”
Professor Philip Treleaven, Director UK Centre for Financial Computing at UCL, added:
“The AIR Platform has the potential of doing for data what the Internet did for communication. We are creating ‘The DataNet’ and doing so from the bottom-up in collaboration with the regulators and service industries. “To thrive, the UK economy needs a new generation of agile data driven businesses. The AIR Platform has the technology stack to preserve security, privacy, regulatory and commercial protections in an automated way; it will break down barriers, allow true collaboration and drive economic innovation.”
The AIR Platform is under development with commercial and collaborator use cases being developed concurrently to establish real-world return on investment. Full project delivery is scheduled for Innovate UK’s deadline of June 2021.
