Senior industry executives warn that delays in planning and slow 5G rollout in the United Kingdom could hinder its ability to keep pace with global AI development. The AI race has focused on building data centers that require large water and energy supplies to cool and power the computational resources needed for training and running AI models. Executives say that insufficient telecom infrastructure may limit the capacity to handle increased AI traffic. The UK government has not announced a specific timeline for accelerating telecoms upgrades, and it remains unclear whether the current deployment schedule will meet future demand.