Governments of UK and Canada announce plans to secure AI sovereignty
The governments of the UK and Canada have separately announced plans this month to invest in AI sovereignty to support national security and boost home-grown innovation and domestic economies.
On 16 April, the UK’s technology secretary Liz Kendall launched UK Sovereign AI, a £500m (US$675m) fund aimed at “helping more British AI companies start up, scale up and compete and succeed globally” and “ensuring our country has greater sovereign capability in this crucial technology”.
She said she believed the fund – which is part of the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan – would be “one of the most important things this government does to build a better future for our country”.
UK Sovereign AI will invest in British AI firms and provide them with access to the UK’s largest supercomputers, research support, procurement opportunities, independent product validation, and the chance to shape regulation.
The government will also help UK AI companies to attract “the world’s top R&D talent” by offering visa decisions within one working day, and up to 10 free visas for skilled individuals looking to work in the UK.
The fund will also cover the legal fees for startups seeking to become UK Limited Companies.
Kendall said the UK “must be an AI maker, not just an AI taker”.
The fund “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. This is how we ensure Britain’s economic prosperity and national security in the modern age”.
Read more: UK government to launch AI research lab to support ‘bold, high-risk’ innovation
Canada taking applications to build AI supercomputer
On the same day, the Government of Canada announced its AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program (SCIP) with an open call for applications to build a large-scale sovereign public AI supercomputer for Canadian researchers and innovators.
In a post on LinkedIn, Evan Solomon, Canada’s AI minister, said: “We’re inviting eligible proponents to design, build, operate, and maintain a Canadian-owned, AI-optimised high-performance computing system. It will form a core part of our digital backbone, anchoring the next wave of Canadian AI innovation here at home.”
The government said SCIP – which is part of the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy – would be “a national platform for innovation” and enable experimentation with “cutting-edge hardware, software, and AI systems” in a protected, sovereign environment.
“SCIP will reinforce long-term economic growth by enabling a secure, Canadian-controlled testbed where domestic technologies can be developed, scaled, and validated,” it said, adding that it would help to “strengthen Canada’s domestic technology value chain by reducing reliance on foreign supply chains, retaining intellectual property and high-value expertise, and creating pathways for homegrown companies to pilot, refine, and commercialise new technologies”.
The public supercomputing system will be complimented by what the government described as a “national service layer”, which will include user support, training and skills development, research consulting, and data services to help researchers and innovators take advantage of the infrastructure.
Read more: Canada aims to integrate digital sovereignty into government decision-making
Strategies outline harnessing of AI for economic growth and national security
Both the UK and Canada have set out their ambitions to harness the potential of AI for economic growth and national security.
In Canada’s Digital Sovereignty Framework, published in November 2025, the government defined digital sovereignty as “the ability of [the Government of Canada] to exercise autonomy over its digital infrastructure, data and intellectual property”, along with “the capacity to operate effectively and make independent decisions about digital assets, regardless of where technologies are developed, hosted, or supported”.
The framework stressed the need for sovereignty to influence “decisions about technology alongside factors such as assurance, innovation and operational needs”.
In the UK, the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, also published last year, described the government’s ambition to boost sovereign supercomputational power and align it with national priorities.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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