Ashurst has joined a consortium of major businesses and universities to develop an artificial intelligence platform that will help regulated businesses benefit from cross-industry data collaboration.

The AIR (Automated Intelligent Regulation) Platform project is being led by regtech company RegulAItion with the aim to transform how industries and regulators work with each other locally and globally by improving data access and collaboration, while also complying with data privacy laws.

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.”

She added: “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.”

The project is being funded by UK Research and Innovation and private investors, and developed by a consortium including Ashurst, the Financial Conduct Authority, two international banks, Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, Wilson Wright Accounting and Tax Practice, University College London and Loughborough University.

Sally Sfeir-Tait, RegulAItion’s CEO, said: “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.”

Data silos mean organisations struggle to develop solutions, and privacy concerns such as GDPR and commercial interests often stand in the way of collaboration and efforts to share knowledge from data, she said.

“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,” Sfeir-Tait added.

The platform is expected to be launched by June next year.