The U.K. has launched its first-ever sovereign AI fund, designed to encourage the country’s AI innovators and create jobs and growth.
The government said it will invest £500 million, or $675 million, to back the country’s brightest AI startups, helping them to bring their ideas to life in the U.K., while scaling globally.
The initiative will essentially work along the same lines as a venture capital fund. In a statement late last week, the government said the country had to become “an AI maker, not just an AI taker.”
As well as providing recipients with capital, the backing of the state will reduce some of the regulatory hurdles that can often prove to be obstacles for fledgling companies.
Successful applicants will get benefits such as fully funded access to the U.K.’s largest AI supercomputers. Up to a million GPU hours will be made available for each startup.
A loosening of the U.K.’s visa process is also in place. The streamlined process will deliver visa decisions within a day, according to the government, and give participating firms access to 10 cost-free visas — moves designed to attract global AI talent.
Specific government support is promised, too, in areas such as data access, procurement and product validation.
“Sovereign AI is unlike anything government has ever done before. Its unique approach will help break down the barriers that have too often held back British enterprise and innovation,” the U.K.’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said in a statement. This is how we ensure Britain’s economic prosperity and national security in the modern age.”
Sovereign AI’s first equity investment will be in London-based Callosum, an infrastructure startup whose technology enables different types of chip architectures to work together to train and operate AI models.
Another six firms will be granted access to the U.K.’s AI Research Resource supercomputer network, with Sovereign AI getting first refusal on future investments for several of the recipients.
The companies are: Prima Mente, which is using AI to better understand brain diseases Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s; Doubleword, which is focused on inference infrastructure; Cosine, a frontier lab developing AI agents to work in defense and national security; Cursive, a firm formed by Google DeepMind alumni to develop AI agents; Odyssey, which is developing world models; and Twig Bio, a biotech company.
Sovereign AI was launched at the headquarters of Wayve, the London-based company that has become one of Europe’s most valuable AI companies thanks to its “embodied AI” system for autonomous vehicles. “We’re excited to see the next generation of British AI companies benefit from the funding opportunities available and join us in supporting the U.K.’s expanding AI ecosystem,” CEO Alex Kendall said in a statement.
