The UK government has hired Obamas former chief economic adviser to tackle competition between UK tech firms and American giants.
Jason Furman, now a professor at Harvard, will chair a panel of experts to analyse whether the emergence of tech superpowers like Google and Facebook has come at the expense of smaller startups looking to make an impact.
“Our tech sector is now worth over £116b and a new digital job is being created in this country every 50 minutes,” said UK chancellor Philip Hammond.
“This is something to be proud of, but at the same time it is only right that we ask the big questions about how we ensure these new digital markets work for everyone.”
Made up of experts from across the tech industry with knowledge of competition law and digital markets, the panel will consider how the UK can progress while ensuring new firms can adequately compete.
Specific attention will also be paid towards the impact of foreign takeovers on UK tech firms, a topic that has garnered focus in recent weeks after the government unveiled a white paper on the issue.
The investigation by the Treasury will run from September this year until early 2019, before publishing a final report.
The government released findings in tandem with the announcement that said data-driven technology could be worth £60bn a year to the UK economy by 2020.
Competition in the tech sector has been an increasingly significant issue for those in the industry this year, ahead of the UKs exit from the European Union.
Tech giant Google was fined a record-breaking fine of £3.8bn last month by the European Commission after an investigation found it had abused market dominance of its Android operating system.
“While digital markets have produced significant consumer benefits, including in the UK, we need to fully understand how competition policy needs to adapt going forward,” said Furman.
“Our focus needs to be on ensuring that consumers continue to benefit from these new technologies while maximising the innovative potential from the economy.”
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