Sovereign AI Unit
Source: gov.uk (2025-07-16)

The Sovereign AI Unit will ensure the government can harness AI’s capabilities to unlock economic growth and enhance UK national security.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities are developing at an extraordinary pace. In an AI enabled world, it matters who influences and builds the models, data and AI infrastructure that are increasingly present in our lives. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has set up the Sovereign AI Unit to build and harness the UK’s AI capabilities to unlock economic growth and enhance UK national security. The Unit works closely with the Prime Minister’s Adviser on AI.

Our scope

Announced in the AI Opportunities Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-action-plan/ai-opportunities-action-plan) prepared by Matt Clifford, the Sovereign AI Unit has an ambitious mandate to strengthen the UK’s capabilities with up to £500 million of funding.

We will do this by:
- Investing in UK companies to support AI national champions. The Sovereign AI Unit will work with the Innovate UK, and the British Business Bank to support high-potential start ups to start and scale their companies in the UK
- Creating and developing UK AI assets and enablers such as data, compute and talent.
- Making the UK the partner of choice for Frontier AI companies. This will ensure that the UK public and private sectors benefit from reliable access to, and influence over the development of, cutting edge technology, ensuring everyone across the country benefits from transformative AI.
Our work

Investments, assets and enablers
- OpenBind (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-become-world-leader-in-drug-discovery-as-technology-secretary-heads-for-london-tech-week): the Sovereign AI Unit provided £8 million of seed funding for the OpenBind Consortium. This will transform AI-led drug discovery by producing a dataset of how drugs bind to their targets 20x larger than everything that has been generated in the last 50 years. This will ensure that frontier AI-driven drug discovery takes place in the UK and the UK and its citizens will benefit from the reduced cost of drug development.
- Encode Fellowship (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-launches-global-talent-drive-to-attract-world-leading-researchers-and-innovators): expanding the flagship 1-year, entrepreneurially focused program run by Pillar VC and ARIA to get top global AI talent working in UK labs on various domains in AI for Science.
- Sovereign AI AIRR opportunity (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sovereign-ai-airr-launch-opportunity-call-for-researchers): a call for access to the AI Research Resource (AIRR) to researchers developing frontier AI capabilities in the UK, in support of the Sovereign AI Unit’s mission.
- UK Compute Roadmap (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-compute-roadmap): plan to build a world-class compute ecosystem that provides a platform for innovation, growth and opportunity across the economy.
Partnerships with companies

These partnerships are Memorandums of Understandings (MoU) which are non-legally binding, non-commercial agreements.
- Anthropic (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-uk-and-anthropic-on-ai-opportunities/memorandum-of-understanding-between-uk-and-anthropic-on-ai-opportunities): in February 2025, HMG signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Anthropic. This recognised the defining opportunity that AI presents and our shared intention is to work together on the most consequential opportunities presented by advanced AI: to foster the continued responsible development and deployment of AI that aligns with our societal values and principles of shared economic prosperity, improved public services and increased personal opportunity.
- Nvidia (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-uk-and-nvidia-on-ai-skills/memorandum-of-understanding-between-uk-and-nvidia-on-ai-skills): signed in June 2025, the MoU with Nvidia will support the upskilling and reskilling of the UK workforce across industry, research and the public sector.
- Cohere (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-uk-and-cohere-on-ai-opportunities/memorandum-of-understanding-between-uk-and-cohere-on-ai-opportunities): signed in June 2025, the MoU with Cohere will see Cohere expand their UK headcount to over 100 UK based staff to support the delivery of the UK AI Opportunities Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-opportunities-action-plan/ai-opportunities-action-plan). This includes collaboration with the UK’s AISI to elevate standards and best practice; support of fellowship programmes and access to state-of-the-art models to advance AI research progress, and; exploring opportunities to support responsible and secure adoption of AI in defence contexts.
- OpenAI (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-between-the-uk-and-openai-on-ai-opportunities): signed in July 2025, the MoU with OpenAI sets out a strategic partnership which will accelerate AI-driven economic growth and ensure that the UK continues to drive critical AI research, creating high-paid jobs and driving investment in infrastructure. The MoU covers potential public sector collaborations in areas such as justice, defence and security, and education. OpenAI will also work more closely with the AI Security Institute to deepen government knowledge of evolving AI capabilities and risks.