AI Champions (SMEs): Frontier AI Phase 1

AI Champions (SMEs): Frontier AI Phase 1 is sponsored by Innovate UK. This opportunity supports UK SMEs developing advanced AI and machine learning solutions with the potential to unlock major improvements or entirely new capabilities.

AI Champions: Frontier AI Phase 1 - Innovate UK Business Connect Knowledge Transfer Partnerships AI Champions: Frontier AI Phase 1 AI Champions: Frontier AI Phase 1 UK registered SME businesses can apply for a share of up to £3m to deliver feasibility studies for frontier artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies.

[taxonomy] => type_of_funding Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £150,000 and £250,000. Up to 70% of costs can be covered, depending on business size. Health , Industrial Maths , Materials , Robotics & AI , Security & Defence Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest a minimum of £3 million on Frontier AI.

The aim of this competition is to advance the development of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the UK. We will fund UK SMEs to validate the technical feasibility of ambitious AI, and ML innovations that could delivery step-change improvements in capability and enable new products, services or platforms.

Within the context of this competition series, we will consider Frontier AI to be any AI or ML systems that deliver state-of-the-art performance against benchmarks or genuinely new-to-the-world capability in clearly specified area, where the advance is attributable to innovation in one of or more of: Model, system architecture core control or learning algorithm Your project must be in one of four specified areas: AI-Enabled Health and Life Sciences, Advanced Materials with AI, Secure AI for National Security & Defence, or Fundamental AI (foundational AI capabilities that can underpin multiple sectors and future applications).

Please see the Specific Themes for details of each area. This is a three-phase stage-gated funding pipeline approach; we will support the next wave of UK AI Champions, from early technical validation through to scale-up. This competition is Phase 1 of the pipeline.

We are seeking ambitious AI and ML innovations grounded in strong scientific evidence and engineering breakthroughs, with the potential to become scalable products and services that will create and shape new markets. Phase 1 is intended to de-risk technical feasibility and generate robust evidence that the core approach works in practice.

Progression to Phase 2 will depend on Business Case approvals, Phase 1 outcomes and the launch of a separate Phase 2 competition. Only successful Phase 1 applicants will be invited to apply to Phase 2. Funding for Phase 2 and Phase 3 of this opportunity is subject to business case approval by the Department of Science for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and HM Treasury.

Your proposal must deliver one or more of the following: proof of concept of architecture or subsystem component technical validation of capability of system or subsystem component frontier AI performance that delivers new to the world capability or state of the performance of existing capability ability of architecture and business model to scale demonstrate a clear path for access to data demonstrate strategy to access compute infrastructure and quantify requirement for compute At the end of the project, you will be required to submit a technical whitepaper summarising: technical progress and outcomes: Concise description of what was built and learned in Phase 1 evidence and validation: Quantified results against pre-defined success criteria, test conditions and a clear statement of remaining technical risks and limitations innovation defensibility plan phase 2 readiness and delivery plan: Clear and explicit translation of Phase 1 evidence into Phase 2 objectives business scaling assumptions and investability Phase 2 of this series will enable projects to develop demonstrators of the innovation you developed in Phase 1 and we would expect you to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) by 2 points in TRL scale.

For Phase 2 projects will be able to submit applications for projects for up to 12 months long with costs of up to £1 million. Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have a 2% chance of success.

For smaller-scale but ultimately more ambitious projects, there is a similar IUK competition, Frontier AI Discovery, open until 10 June 2026, which is open to all UK organisations, and has expected phase 1 costs of £25k-£50k, with phase 2 costs of £5m-£10m. const el = $refs['accordion1']; const top = el. getBoundingClientRect().

top + window. pageYOffset - 80; // adjust offset window. scrollTo({ top, behavior: 'smooth' }); To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered SME.

Collaborations and subcontractors are not allowed in this competition. A business can only lead on one application. const el = $refs['accordion2']; const top = el.

getBoundingClientRect(). top + window. pageYOffset - 80; // adjust offset window.

scrollTo({ top, behavior: 'smooth' }); have total costs between £150,000 and £250,000 (up to 70% of costs can be covered) last between 3 to 6 months Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK. const el = $refs['accordion3']; const top = el. getBoundingClientRect().

top + window. pageYOffset - 80; // adjust offset window. scrollTo({ top, behavior: 'smooth' }); The aim of this competition is to advance the development of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the UK.

We will fund UK SMEs to validate the technical feasibility of ambitious AI, and ML innovations that could delivery step-change improvements in capability and enable new products, services or platforms.

Within the context of this competition series, we will consider Frontier AI to be any AI, ML systems that deliver state-of-the-art performance against benchmarks or genuinely new-to-the-world capability in clearly specified area, where the advance is attributable to innovation in one of or more of: model, system architecture core control or learning algorithm Your project must focus on novel AI and ML technology and methodology development and validate the objectives of Phase 1 outcomes with clear metrics.

We are looking for applications with a clear route to defensibility, such as protectable IP, proprietary data advantage, specialist know-how or other credible barriers to entry, with a path to scale. Projects must start at a Technology Readiness Level of 3 or below at time of application. Your technology must have in principle the ability to scale at pace, but you are not required to prove or validate scalability during Phase 1.

Your project must demonstrate the ability of your technology to work in principle. You can focus in demonstrating at least the key critical component and you can utilise synthetic and simulated data for validation. You need to demonstrate how you will achieve state of the art performance if capability already exists, or new to the world capability if this genuinely novel capability.

Funding will be reserved for projects in which AI is the core technical contribution and the main source of operational advantage.

Your proposal must deliver (Phase 1): proof of concept prototype of the whole stack or the core architecture or critical subsystem component a clear validation methodology against predefined metrics evidence of technical novelty a scaling rationale for the technology and business model To be in scope of this competition your project must sufficiently describe: Serviceable market and customers Background IP and route to defensibility Technical novelty and benchmarked validation One key uncertainty you will resolve during Phase 1 const el = $refs['accordion4']; const top = el.

getBoundingClientRect(). top + window. pageYOffset - 80; // adjust offset window.

scrollTo({ top, behavior: 'smooth' }); Your proposal must fall within one or more of the following themes, You must focus on one specific priority within each theme you select. If your application does not align with the theme and specific priority you select, it will not be sent for assessment. Theme 1: AI-Enabled Health and Life Sciences .

Making the UK the best place to develop and deploy AI for drug discovery, development and manufacturing of medicines, clinical trials, and healthcare delivery. You must focus on one of the following priorities: medicines manufacturing optimisation Theme 2: Advanced Materials with AI .

Building a world-leading AI-first materials R&D capability (including applications in aerospace, net zero technologies, defence and semiconductors) You must focus on one of the following priorities: material prediction, generative models & multi objective optimisation physics-ML models for discovery and simulation acceleration multimodal knowledge discovery platforms Theme 3: Secure AI for National Security & Defence (NS&D).

Enable the UK’s defence sector to become a leading integrator of secure AI-enhanced command & control and AI enabled sensors.

You must focus on one of the following priorities: AI driven assured multi-source fusion and analytics for distributed heterogeneous information, multimodal systems for decision support edge autonomy and robust decision, control AI systems, Low-Swap inference, quantum-AI & semiconductor-AI for novel underwater sensors secure and robust AI, ML driven signal processing, AI for acoustic signal processing & digital EW Theme 4, Fundamental AI .

Advancing foundational AI capabilities that can underpin multiple sectors and future applications. You must focus on one of the following priorities: abstract reasoning and generalisation novel AI, ML architectures & methodologies, online learning and world model learning systems generalisable explainable AI const el = $refs['accordion5']; const top = el. getBoundingClientRect().

top + window. pageYOffset - 80; // adjust offset window. scrollTo({ top, behavior: 'smooth' }); Innovate UK held a webinar briefing on Zoom at 11am on Wednesday 18 March: watch the recording and download the slides .

For advice, you can contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Robotics & AI team . Innovate UK's application and funding process If you need more information about how to apply, please read our funding support pages. For additional support, reach out to our team of innovation experts who are ready to help you navigate the application process and maximise your chances of success.

[url] => /how-we-help/innovation-funding-and-support/ Accessibility and Inclusion Innovate UK welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us. This opportunity is part of AI.

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are significant globalised technologies applicable to every sector. The UK’s extensive industrial and academic research base has immense potential to impact on home and global markets. Connect with Innovate UK Business Connect I agree to receive marketing communications, including newsletters, from Innovate UK Business Connect.