One of Bihar-born Labour MP Kanishka Narayan’s most enduring childhood memories was when he asked a head teacher at Cardiff’s Cathays High School to sign a scholarship form for Eton College. The request, he admits, was strangely timed – it came when the head teacher was trying to break up a school bus fight.
“For me, as for so many others, teachers changed the course of my life. One of them carried an irrational belief in my ability and urged me to apply for scholarships to private schools. I still remember the day I asked our Headteacher, Mr Phillips, to sign a scholarship form for Eton College as he broke up a school-bus fight. He seemed totally surprised. My youthful naivety ignored it,” he writes on his official website.
It was this tenacity that would help the Muzaffarpur-born Narayan throughout his years in government and eventually propel him forward in his political career. On July 20, the 36-year-old Narayan, the first ethnic minority MP to represent a Welsh constituency, was elevated to the UK Cabinet as Minister for Artificial Intelligence as part of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s wider government reorganisation after taking office following the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer.
For Narayan, the Labour MP for Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, this comes after years in government, having previously served as an economist and senior adviser to Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister in the Business Department and the Cabinet Office.
“AI is likely the most significant technology in human history,” he said in a post on X after his appointment. “Its impact will dwarf other things. The best case for it is compelling beyond our dreams: a reindustrialised Britain, stronger national security, public services transformed for the better.”
The 12-year-old who came to Wales
Born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, in November 1989, Narayan spent his early childhood in the city before his family moved to Delhi and later relocated to Cardiff, Wales, when he was 12. His family has longstanding links to legal education in Bihar. His paternal grandfather, Krishna Kumar, founded Shri Krishna Jubilee (SKJ) Law College in Muzaffarpur, where both his parents, Santosh Kumar and Chetna Sinha, reportedly studied law before later qualifying as solicitors in the United Kingdom.
Narayan’s uncle, Jayant Kumar, the director of SKJ Law College in Muzaffarpur, tells The Indian Express that Narayan spent his first two years of schooling in the city before the family moved to Delhi, where he studied until the family’s move to Cardiff.
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“We were in a modest one-bedroom flat in Bedford Street. Each morning, my brother and I walked to Cathays High School to get a good Welsh education. My mum and dad still live and work within walking distance of where we grew up,” Narayan writes on his official website.
After Eton College, Narayan studied at the University of Oxford and Stanford University, USA. On his website, Narayan acknowledges his privilege of studying in elite institutions.
“I have had the deepest privileges of education since – generous bursary support that allowed me to attend Eton; undergraduate education in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford; an MBA at Stanford University in the USA. Throughout it, I have never forgotten a simple reality: there was no difference in talent between my friends at Cathays in Cardiff, and my friends at each of the institutions I experienced since. There was only [a] difference in opportunity,” he says.
Before entering Parliament, Narayan worked across both the public and private sectors, including in investment banks and venture capital firms, where he advised corporate boards, government finance ministries and technology entrepreneurs, with a focus on artificial intelligence, financial technology and climate-related initiatives.
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In government, Narayan served as an economist and senior adviser, advising Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister in the Business Department and the Cabinet Office. He also reportedly contributed to drafting the UK’s 25-year environment plan as an expert adviser to the environment secretary.
On July 4, 2024, Narayan took his first political plunge, defeating Conservative candidate Alun Cairns by 4,216 votes. The victory was a milestone of sorts – not only did it mark the first Labour gain in the Vale of Glamorgan in 14 years, but it also made Narayan the first ethnic minority MP to represent a Welsh constituency.
From September 7, 2025, until July 20, 2026, Narayan served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, overseeing artificial intelligence and online safety – an appointment that acted as the precursor to his Cabinet rank.
The appointment comes at a time when fears of disinformation, cyberattacks, privacy violations and job displacement over the use of AI grow. Narayan’s post on X acknowledges these dangers.
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“The risks, too, are real: it is right that the British public shares those worries, for jobs, for the pace of change,” he says. “The central fact is that it is happening. Nations have a narrow window to decide whether they shape AI or get shaped by it. Britain is in that window right now.”
Narayan said in his post that he would “act with pace” and “act with ambition” to strengthen Britain’s role in shaping artificial intelligence. “I will also bring to this job the place I represent — a constituency in Wales, a nation with industry and ambition at its heart… A nation which welcomed a 12-year-old and his family, gave us the best chance at opportunity, put me in Parliament as Wales’ first ethnic minority MP, and now affords me the chance to make a mark in Cabinet. Diolch o galon to everyone in the Vale of Glamorgan,” he said.
