Sovereign AI. Launching Tonight. 🇬🇧

Since its launch two weeks ago, over 700 British companies have applied to the @UKSovereignAI procurement scheme - a scheme we designed to remove as many of the blockers start-ups face when bidding on Government contracts as possible. To get a sense of the interest we have had, we hit the hard cap of 1000 attendees for the launch webinar - Brits want to build! Responses on eligibility will be sent out this week, and invites to bid on the challenges covering AI security, compute efficiency and better health services, will arrive soon too. Of course we are still a very small team at SovAI, and we only have 4 bids open ( but hope to have many more live by end of year! ), so naturally we will have to turn many applicants down. I know this will be disappointing, our decision making will not be perfect and it's a difficult process, thank you to everyone for bidding. And as a reminder, I personally do not see any applications and have no role in the decision process, that is led by our expert IC and mission champions, so while I appreciate the many reach-outs I really can do nothing to help specific companies. SovAI are working with other Departments to share what we've learned from this process to fix our procurement system, and will be launching more requests for cheaper, better and more innovative services for Government in the coming months.

We’re changing government procurement and making it easier for British AI startups to work with government. Our challenge based R&D Procurement Scheme is LIVE with the first challenges coming from @ARIA_research, @DefenceHQ, @NCSC and @DHSCgovuk . We’re creating new opportunities for British startups to build and test technology against real-world problems while delivering public benefit. With up to £100m available, this is a new way of working with government. Watch to find out more.

You can find more details about how to apply here: sovereignai.gov.uk/compute-s…

FULL INTERVIEW: I sat down with @DanAkarca to announce the 100m Seed. Dan is a generational founder building for a future of AI that is inevitable. They are building the software layer that lets AI workloads run across a mix of different models and chips Today they've announced a $100m seed led by atomico, backed by @pluralplatform (@soundboy), @DCVC, @UKSovereignAI (@jameswise, @suzanneashman) Here's the full interview: 0:00 - Introduction 1:09 - Callosum's approach to AI infrastructure 5:56 - How Callosum's technology works for customers 8:48 - Callosum's new $100m round 12:33 - How Callosum built partnerships with chip companies like Cerebras 17:14 - Why Callosum wasn't built just to make chips work together 20:03 - What the $100m will fund next 24:54 - Why cost is becoming as important as speed for AI buyers 28:03 - Who Danyal thinks will win the AI stack over the next three years 33:03 - Why London has become a serious AI hub Huge congrats to the @CallosumAI team, @DanAkarca @achterbrain

Britain is building the future of chips, the foundation for modern AI, an ambition shared by the @CallosumAI team. Congratulations to @DanAkarca, @achterbrain and team on a major milestone, backed by @UKSovereignAI 🇬🇧

A massive congratulations to @CallosumAI on raising a $100m seed round. Callosum was our first investment. We backed @achterbrain, @DanAkarca and the team because they’re building a foundational piece of the next generation of AI infrastructure. It’s brilliant to see that conviction shared by leading investors.

Today we announce our $100M seed round to redefine how humanity computes in AI's next chapter. The future of compute and AI is heterogeneous. Callosum is building it: callosum.com/blog/seed-round

See below for the third quarterly update from our chair, @Jameswise. 🇬🇧

My latest Chair's report on our work @uksovereignai, including an update on our portfolio, our work on rapid procurement from UK AI companies, and reflections on how our mission has become even more salient:

The largest infrastructure build out of all time is underway to deliver the ‘AI Factories’ necessary for more powerful and plentiful AI. There is one glaring problem with the current approach: The AI Factory is ignoring two centuries of lessons learned the hard way on how you should set-up and run a factory. Building ever stronger one-chip-for-everything solutions can deliver short term improvements to the pareto frontier but will never produce a pareto optimal inference system that delivers a transformational step change in inference cost & performance. The Token Factory is Missing its Production Line sets out my view on where the current approach goes wrong and outlines what we are building at @OLIXComputing . Building the machines, the line and the line manager for the Token Factory simultaneously is hard work. It requires a team that is far broader than traditional AI accelerator companies and extremely thorough rack scale co-design, but this is what it takes to win. Today OLIX has announced our $312m Series B. I’m grateful to the team and our investors for their hard work & support over the last two years and am immeasurably excited for the future ahead of us.