Keir Starmer has decided not to travel to Paris for next week’s international summit on artificial intelligence, despite the presence of other world leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Narendra Modi and JD Vance.
Sources have told the Guardian that the prime minister will not attend the summit, the latest in a series of international AI conferences started by the former prime minister Rishi Sunak last year at Bletchley Park.
Officials say the prime minister, who has been criticised in the past for taking too many foreign trips, will be concentrating on his domestic agenda instead.
But by missing the Paris conference, Starmer risks upsetting the French president and the Indian prime minister, who are co-hosting, and missing out on a chance to speak to some of those closest to the US president, Donald Trump. The US vice-president, JD Vance, is expected to represent the US, but industry sources believe Elon Musk may also attend in a business capacity as the founder of the AI company xAI.
A No 10 spokesperson said: “The power and potential of evolving technologies like AI are rightly being harnessed by the UK and our allies.
“The prime minister recently launched our AI action plan, to make sure Britain is maximising our role as a current AI leader, to secure jobs, growth and to improve the lives of working people. He is a big believer in the galvanising economic potential of this tech, and so of course wishes our close ally President Macron a successful summit.”
Starmer is understood to be spending the first day of the summit on a housing-related visit in the UK, before voting on the government’s immigration bill.
Sunak launched the AI safety summits last year when he hosted a two-day event at Bletchley Park attended by Kamala Harris, then the US vice-president, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Georgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister.
That summit was seen as a diplomatic coup and resulted in the first international declaration on how to develop AI safely, amid warnings that advanced algorithms could eventually pose a threat to humanity. Starmer has previously called that summit “very important”.
Since entering Downing Street, Starmer has shown a similar interest to his predecessor in AI, but unlike Sunak, has chosen to focus more heavily on the opportunities the technology can bring. Last month the prime minister gave a speech on the technology in which he said: “Britain will be one of the great AI superpowers.”
Next week’s summit is being seen in Paris as a key moment in Macron’s presidency and a test of his clout on the international stage. France is keen to use the gathering to talk about how to provide clean power for AI and how to mitigate disruption to the labour market.
A source close to the president told French reporters recently: “This is going to be the thing for Emmanuel Macron, and he has high expectations of it. The Élysée Palace is working very hard on this.”
