NTT Data’s Tom Winstanley: UK & Japan Can Rewrite AI Rules

As AI reshapes economies, security and daily life, governments face mounting pressure to coordinate rules that balance innovation with protection of citizens worldwide. 

Debates over global governance are intensifying as major powers pursue divergent strategies, raising risks of fragmentation, regulatory competition and uneven impacts across labour markets and public services. 

Amid this tension, policymakers and industry leaders are exploring whether a pragmatic middle path can safeguard rights, build trust and still unlock the economic potential of responsible AI development. 

Here, Tom Winstanley, CTO UK & Ireland at NTT DATA, examines the choices ahead and how the UK and Japan might lead the charge. 

How urgent is the need for global AI governance? 

It is pressing, according to Sir Jeremy Fleming, the former Director of GCHQ. Speaking recently, he said we must quickly develop global AI governance – arguing that either “we do that with an alliance of like-minded countries or we do that through some sort of established multilateral partnership”. 

However, attempts to build such a governance system face a structural problem. 

Over the coming years, the nations with the strongest AI industries are likely to accumulate ever more data, capital, computing power and geopolitical influence. 

Their companies will export AI services with huge impacts on labour markets and public services elsewhere. Aware of the threat to their own economies and populations, many governments are competing to attract investment and anchor promising firms before the balance of power hardens. 

The temptation here is for governments to minimise regulation of their AI sectors in order to maximise inward investment – but this threatens a race to the bottom in which the rights, freedoms and incomes of citizens are not protected. If communities find the AI revolution is exposing them to bias, discrimination, misinformation, security risks and unemployment, they will rapidly turn against both the technology and their political leaders.

The tension between fostering thriving AI sectors and safeguarding society is now at the heart of global AI policy.

How are major powers responding to this dilemma?

Nations are approaching this dilemma in very different ways. Some have imposed very few controls on the use of AI technologies – either seeking to support rapid growth of their AI businesses, or to provide the arms of state power with a potent range of new tools. 

The US has taken the first of these routes: here, policy has leaned towards minimal oversight, with the government’s AI Action Plan loosening restrictions intended to curb bias and misinformation. China has followed the second: its nationwide deployment of AI-powered facial recognition, as reported by AFP, reflects a model that relies on surveillance and central control.

The European Union, on the other hand, has introduced tight restrictions on the use of AI by both private companies and public institutions through its AI Act, which closely safeguards the rights and freedoms of individuals. 

These contrasting approaches are often framed as mutually exclusive: maximise innovation by minimising regulation or maximise protection by imposing strict controls. But this is a false dichotomy. A third path is possible – one that upholds citizens’ rights, prevents discrimination and tackles disinformation, while still creating the conditions for responsible innovation and economic growth.

Which countries are in the best position to lead with this ‘third path’? 

Two stand out. The UK and Japan are both globally-trading, technologically-advanced democracies with mature regulatory systems and strong commitments to the rule of law. Both host globally-significant AI research communities and private-sector innovators. Crucially, both have articulated a philosophy that rejects the trade-off between ethics and growth.

The UK-Japan Digital Partnership formalised these shared values, committing the UK and Japan to promote resilient digital infrastructure, champion safe cross-border data flows and collaborate on AI governance and standards within a human-centred values framework.

This philosophy is captured by Japan’s long-standing Society 5.0 agenda. It positions advanced technologies – including AI, robotics and data systems – as tools to solve demographic, environmental and social challenges, while sustaining economic growth. The UK, meanwhile, has emphasised a pro-innovation, principles-based regulatory model that seeks to guide AI development without stifling it. 

This is where the UK’s regulatory pragmatism and Japan’s human-centred innovation culture converge. Both countries support responsible innovation through governance that relies on guidance and principles rather than strict rules. 

The UK is laying out a sector-based framework with core principles and encouraging voluntary safety and transparency measures alongside existing regulations. Similarly, Japan has used non-binding guidelines to guide domestic AI development, supported by targeted legislation such as the AI Promotion Act. 

For both countries, the goal is to prove that technology can serve prosperity and people simultaneously. At the heart of their shared approach is a view of trust as a strategic asset, built through transparency and standards-setting.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of a regulatory approach? 

Within this model, regulators can create sandbox environments: controlled spaces where companies test new AI systems under supervision. These trials give firms room to experiment safely, while providing regulators with a clearer view of how the technology operates. 

By promoting safe experimentation and transparency, the sandbox approach helps build trust between industry and government. Insights from these pilots then inform future rules, striking a balance between under-regulation, which increases risk exposure and over-regulation, putting the brakes on progress. This iterative, evidence-led approach embodies regulatory pragmatism in action and provides a template that could be internationalised through UK–Japan cooperation.

However, regulatory balance alone is not in itself sufficient to give the UK and Japan a leading edge. If the UK is to become, in Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s words, an “AI maker” rather than an “AI taker”, it must reinforce its digital foundations. That means expanding access to advanced computing infrastructure, scaling data centre capacity and ensuring energy supply keeps pace with AI-driven demand. 

How can the UK achieve this? 

By mobilising investment on a scale comparable to global competitors such as the US, China and the EU. The latter is backing AI gigafactories with state support; the US has launched the US$500bn Stargate project, led by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank; China continues to align its industrial strategy with state-backed capital.

To compete, the UK could designate AI readiness as a shared national priority – aligning planning reform, grid expansion, skills development and infrastructure investment under one coherent strategy.

The AI Growth Opportunities Plan and AI Growth Zones signal intent, but sustained delivery requires deeper public–private partnership. That may mean deploying public capital strategically to derisk early-stage infrastructure while providing long-term policy certainty to crowd in private investment.

Alphabet’s £5bn (US$6.77bn) data centre in Waltham Cross is a promising start. Building on that momentum will require nurturing a broader ecosystem of domestic and international infrastructure providers capable of anchoring the UK’s AI capabilities at scale.

Japan offers us a useful comparison. There, the government’s policy ambitions have been backed by decisive spending: a US$65bn national plan announced in late 2024 for AI and semiconductor development, for example, as well as a US$677m partnership between SoftBank and OpenAI to build a new data centre in Osaka. Projects like these are expanding domestic computing capacity and signalling to international firms that Japan can host large-scale AI development. 

What can the UK and Japan do to build on their Digital Partnership?

So far, the partnership has mostly remained a channel through which both sides can share policy ideas and research – but it has the potential to do so much more. 

The next step should deepen the collaboration into practical alignment. That could include jointly developed technical standards, interoperable certification mechanisms for trustworthy AI systems, coordinated safety-testing protocols and four-way public–private innovation partnerships spanning both countries.

Real leadership will come from demonstrating that responsible growth works in practice: shared infrastructure, shared standards, visible economic returns and public trust. If the UK and Japan can align regulatory pragmatism with human-centred innovation – and back it with serious investment – they can establish a genuine third path in global AI governance.