Britain's tech industry should adopt a pragmatic approach to Sovereign AI that actively backs British AI businesses, giving them clearer routes to scale, win contracts and compete internationally, while retaining control over critical capabilities and continuing to work with global technology partners, according to the head of the UK's AI trade body.
Speaking after a parliamentary roundtable at the House of Lords, Tim Flagg, Chief Executive of UKAI, said the UK's competitive advantage lies in pairing strong domestic capability with openness.
Rather than trying to compete on scale, or build self-sufficiency, sovereignty should be defined by control and resilience: ensuring that critical AI systems, data and services cannot simply be switched off, compromised or made inaccessible due to external dependencies.
The discussion highlighted the UK's opportunity to chart a distinctive path on AI, one that avoids replicating the hyperscale model or overly rigid regulatory approaches, and instead builds on British strengths in research, trusted institutions, open innovation, regulation, standards and ethical governance.
Participants emphasised the need for pragmatism: focusing on smart technical and policy choices, including efficient and open models, secure and low-carbon compute, trusted data access, and governance frameworks that embed privacy and safety by design.
