Potential parliamentary candidate for Buckingham and Bletchley vows to make constituency 'AI safety capital of the world'

At the heart of the newly formed Buckingham and Bletchley constituency is Bletchley Park, the secret site of Britain’s WWII codebreakers, which played

host to Elon Musk at the AI Safety Summit last November. Now, tech consultant Uday Nagaraju, who is seeking selection as Labour’s candidate for

the new constituency, wants to turn it into the “AI safety capital of the world”.

He is fashionably late but sharply dressed for our lunch in Hounslow, and kindly orders for me - a thali of his choosing.

Uday comes across as driven and resilient. He suffered from child abuse and anxiety growing up in Hyderabad, India, only diagnosed with the latter once he began a master’s in computer science at Oxford Brookes.

“I grew up in a small town. I had no idea that that was anxiety. It impacted my sleep, my relationships, my grades,” he explains.

Uday does recall some happy times as a child, including captaining his local cricket team, but it was a challenging time. He worries that many young people might still be missing out on the help they need.

A great admirer of Tony Blair, Uday credits New Labour, and the diagnosis he received on the NHS, with “transforming [his] life completely” after he moved

to the UK. He has since led a successful career in tech consulting, taking him to Nepal to interview the Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and motivating him to help form two think tanks dedicated to public policy and “the safety, security, ethics and privacy of AI”. This is voluntary work, and Uday frequently emphasises the importance of giving back during our conversation.

Uday recently received a second master’s degree, this time in public administration, development, technology and innovation policy from University College, London. Why the move back to education?

“It was like I was running a restaurant, but I didn’t know how to cook.” With fresh knowledge and skills, Uday felt the time was right to run for the Labour

Party.

Back to Bletchley Park, Uday says that the location is ideal, right on the proposed East West Rail line between Oxford and Cambridge. He wants to get

both universities onboard, as well as The South Central Institute of Technology, to make his vision a reality.

Why else is Milton Keynes the right fit for the project?

“Where else in the UK had robots deliver to people during COVID?” he responds cheerily.

“I could be a bit of a dreamer here. I know its ambitious, but so am I.”

Then there is history. Uday asks me what I think the significance of Bletchley Park was to humanity. I emphasise the pivotal role of

the codebreakers, whose identities remained secret for decades, in defining the outcome of WWII. Uday quantifies it; “Bletchley Park served humanity by reducing the war by two-to-four years”. Now he wants to give the site a new purpose in ensuring AI is used to benefit, not exploit, humanity.

Unsurprisingly, he is optimistic about Labour’s chances of winning Buckingham and Bletchley. He regularly canvasses with other local members and candidates. Beaten by Chris Curtis to the Milton Keynes North selection in 2022, Uday lent his support to Curtis straight afterward.