The AI Opportunities Action Plan is backed by leading tech firms, some of which have committed £14bn towards various projects, creating 13,250 jobs, the government said.

Neil Smith, Managing Director of Cheltenham-based business Reform IT, has welcomed the government announcement.

"Cheltenham and Gloucester particularly are incredibly well positioned to take advantage of the investment that's been announced with the forthcoming cyber park," he said.

"We have an opportunity in Gloucestershire now to develop talent to train people and to become a centre of excellence, for AI development."

Both the University of Gloucestershire and Berkeley Green UTC have specialist IT courses in which AI development is explored.

Gareth Lister said AI is really good for training, admin and supporting work but wants it to feature more heavily on the curriculum.

"For schools like mine where we can teach the intricacies and the technical details of how exactly AI works and develop those skills in programming in cloud computing in artificial intelligence and cyber security." Mr Lister said.

He added "we need young people to be highly skilled in those sort of areas".

Dr Will Sayers, who heads up the University of Gloucestershire's School for Computing, says the county can take advantage of its current cyber industry.

"We're ideally positioned to benefit from national investment in a way that means our local more established cyber companies will be able to pick up partnerships," Dr Sayers said.