Beyond AI sovereignty - blog by Simon Fabri, CEO at HMGCC

What does AI sovereignty mean? Is it achievable? And what is the UK’s part in the big picture of rapidly transforming artificial intelligence? 

It feels like everyone is talking about this hot topic at the moment. AI is filling the news headlines with hopes and fears around UK resilience. I was even on stage at the recent Cambridge Tech Week taking part in a panel which delved into the heart of these issues. 

There was a consensus that AI sovereignty does not mean trying to own the entire AI stack and creating a 21st century autarky. The UK food supply chain gives us a useful comparison. The fundamental geographic and climatic realities of the UK mean that we will never be able to source all food products from within the UK but our nation still has a robust, reliable and resilient supply chain.  

A recent paper by the Alan Turing Institute proposes an approach to AI sovereignty based on strategic interdependence.  

The discussion on AI got me thinking about technology sovereignty more broadly, and what it means for organisations such as HMGCC. Here at HMGCC, our purpose is creating technology solutions for some of the most gnarly problems faced by our partners across UK national security. Increasingly these solutions are provided by bringing together our amazing technologists and engineers with the best tech that industry and academia has to offer. 

So, in this context, what does technology sovereignty really mean? Does it mean that we only work with UK companies and universities, or is it something else? 

From an HMGCC perspective, technology sovereignty is about giving us the technology options we need to meet our partners’ mission needs. This comes in various guises. It may mean (for example) having secure and trusted access to the latest quantum technologies or low-power edge AI, both of which are in our Top 10 Technologies. It also means having access to the right manufacturing technologies, both in-house and with our network of partners. It is also about having supply chains we can trust. 

Through this lens, HMGCC’s external innovation activities can be seen as enhancing the UK’s technology sovereignty. Through the HMGCC Co-Creation programme, we work with companies, large and small, to adapt their technologies for novel dual-use applications. In the past 12 months alone, we have issued more than 20 challenges, with at least 30 companies awarded contracts.  

Our work drives and motivates companies to pivot products for national security use.  This is equipping the national security mission with the best tech the UK and partner countries have to offer. By doing so we are helping create an internationally more competitive and resilient national tech supply base.