AI Infrastructure

The UK has world-class research, a strong startup ecosystem, and deep sector expertise. AI for Growth is working to connect those assets — and lay the foundations for sovereign AI capability.

The challenge

The UK's AI strengths are real. But they don't always connect to the businesses that need them. Research stays in universities. Startups struggle to reach enterprise customers. SMEs don't know what infrastructure they can access or rely on.


At the same time, questions about sovereignty — who controls the AI the UK depends on, and where that data lives — are becoming harder to ignore.


Without deliberate effort to join these things up, the UK risks building excellent AI capability that doesn't translate into economic growth.

What we're doing

AI for Growth's infrastructure workstream focuses on three areas: government engagement, sovereign AI positioning, and building the research agenda that informs both.


This is longer-term work. The goal is to make sure the decisions being made now — by government, by investors, by large organisations — are grounded in an accurate picture of where the UK actually stands.

Government Engagement

We work with government bodies to build understanding of what AI infrastructure means in practice — what's needed, what's available, and what policy can do to accelerate access.


This isn't lobbying. It's education and coordination — helping the people making decisions understand what's actually happening on the ground in UK businesses, and where the structural barriers are.

Sovereign AI Positioning

Sovereign AI — the idea that the UK should have meaningful control over the AI systems it depends on — is increasingly central to national technology policy.


AI for Growth is contributing to that conversation. We work across the alliance to understand what sovereign capability looks like for the UK, what it requires, and what's currently standing in the way.


This includes questions about data infrastructure, compute access, home-grown model development, and the regulatory environment that shapes all of it.

Research Agenda

We're building the evidence base that policymakers, investors, and businesses need to make good decisions about AI infrastructure.


That means honest research into where the UK's strengths actually lie, where the gaps are, and what barriers are slowing progress — across sectors, regions, and organisation sizes.


Research outputs will be published through our Insights page as they're completed.


Our latest insights →

Get involved

Find out how to contribute to the infrastructure workstream.


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