The government is preparing to reboot the development of Britain’s data centre network in response to complaints from the technology sector that there are issues with planning permission and power supplies for the key digital infrastructure.

Setting out her agenda for the year ahead, Michelle Donelan, the technology secretary, said she was working closely with her counterparts in the energy and communities departments to address the issue.

TechUK, the industry lobby group, has been calling for reforms in response to the ever-increasing digitisation of the economy. Last year, in a letter to Ofgem, the energy regulator, it said that “data centres are not being built” and that “getting access to power has held back some key digital infrastructure projects”.

Britain’s digital capacity is only one issue for Donelan, who leads the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and who has a full inbox for the year ahead, dealing with the complex issues raised by the development of artificial intelligence and the increased regulation of technology businesses, as well as a looming general election.

In a speech on Tuesday she will announce measures to support so-called scale-up businesses, meaning fast-growing companies that have matured beyond the start-up stage. She will say that she plans to make Britain home to half of all European technology “unicorns” — private technology business valued at $1 billion or more — by 2030, up from about a third today.

A new group called the “scale-up forum” will be established to advise the government on some of the issues faced by entrepreneurs, such as access to capital, infrastructure, skills and regulation. The department also will implement an advisory scheme to support the sector, with 20 companies joining a pilot project. None of the members of either group have been named.

Her department is also looking at how to resolve the increasingly contentious debate between the technology sector and the creative industries over the thorny issue of artificial intelligence and copyright, after talks led by the Intellectual Property Office failed. The two sides are at loggerheads. In crude terms, the technology sector believes it should be able to use content for AI, while the creative sectors believe they should be asked and paid if their copyright is included.

Donelan said she was working closely with her global counterparts in other countries on the issue: “It is difficult to navigate between the two competing interests. What we have tried to do in this country is to bring them both to the table and see what will be the best path forward. We’ll be coming forward in the coming months with more of a direction of travel on this agenda that we think will protect the creative industries and recognise their needs whilst also allowing the AI sector to grow and to boost innovation.”

The government’s delayed response to the white paper on AI regulation, due in September, was “imminent”, she said.

The technology secretary insisted that she would “regulate to innovate” and backed the Competition and Markets Authority as an “independent body”, despite criticism of the watchdog over the past year from some corners of the technology sector.