Kainos joins Cosine coalition to help shape UK sovereign AI for real-world use. Date posted 10 September 2026 Reading time Kainos to bring government and regulated sector delivery expertise as Cosine develops Lumen Sovereign London, UK - 10th September 2026 - Kainos, a leading digital technology company, announced today that it has joined Cosine's coalition of UK organisations helping to shape sovereign AI for government and critical public sector use cases. Through the partnership, Kainos will share insights from AI delivery in government, public sector and regulated environments to help Cosine understand the requirements sovereign AI would need to deliver in operational settings. That includes input on the practical requirements organisations face around governance, assurance, security, deployment and adoption. Kainos's involvement reflects growing demand from government and regulated organisations for AI capabilities that can be adopted with greater control over data, infrastructure and operational use. Cosine is developing Lumen Sovereign - its UK sovereign AI model under the Government's £500m Sovereign AI programme - with insight from organisations across banking, telecoms, defence, professional services and critical infrastructure on potential use cases, security requirements and governance standards for sovereign AI deployment. Kainos brings a public sector delivery perspective to that process, grounded in deep engineering expertise and long-standing experience with organisations including the NHS, Ministry of Defence, Home Office and Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. As the largest UK-headquartered supplier of AI to government and a home-grown technology unicorn, Kainos is well placed to help Cosine understand what AI needs to deliver in large, highly accountable organisations. The ambition is to help ensure UK-developed AI capability is not only built in the UK but trusted and used by the government and regulated organisations Kainos serves. Gareth Workman, Chief AI Officer at Kainos, said: "Sovereign AI needs to mean more than local hosting. It means meaningful control across the full AI lifecycle, including data, models, infrastructure, assurance and operations. Kainos's role in this coalition is to bring a practitioner's view of what it takes to move AI from model development into trusted service delivery. By working with Cosine from the outset, we can help ensure UK-developed AI is shaped around the needs, constraints and expectations of the organisations that will ultimately depend on it." "Public sector adoption of AI will depend on whether these systems can be governed, assured, and deployed in ways that stand up to real scrutiny," said Ali Pullen, CEO of Cosine. "Kainos has a strong record in government delivery and a clear point of view on sovereign AI as a matter of control and assurance, not just infrastructure. That is exactly the kind of perspective we want in the coalition as we build sovereign AI for the UK's most important environments." Over the next six to 12 months, the collaboration is expected to inform defined use cases, pilot opportunities, roadmap recommendations and clearer adoption pathways for public sector and regulated organisations. It also creates a closer link with frontier model providers, helping Kainos bring emerging capability to customers in a way that fits their operating environments.

Vodafone Business backs UK sovereign AI model. Vodafone Business has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with London-based AI lab Cosine to join an industry coalition co-designing Lumen Sovereign, described as the UK's first fully sovereign frontier AI model. The collaboration will explore sovereign AI research, development and commercial adoption, with a focus on organisations operating in highly regulated and sensitive environments. Lumen Sovereign is being developed as a domestically trained foundation model designed to operate independently of foreign infrastructure. Cosine says the model will be trained entirely in the UK using Isambard-AI, with deployment readiness targeted for the end of 2026. The coalition aims to define use cases, security requirements and governance standards from the outset for sectors including government, defence, financial services, healthcare and critical national infrastructure. Vodafone Business plans to contribute expertise in secure connectivity, cloud, cyber security and enterprise deployment. The announcement aligns with increased UK Government support for sovereign AI and domestic compute, including a £500 million Sovereign AI programme, a £1.1 billion AI Hardware Plan and £400 million to purchase next-generation AI chips. Originally reported by vodafone.co.uk Read the source

Vodafone backs AI platform to keep government data off foreign systems. Vodafone Business has joined a coalition developing Britain's first AI model to keep sensitive government and business data under government control. The project will provide a secure AI platform that government departments, defence organisations and operators of critical infrastructure can use without sensitive information being processed on foreign-controlled systems. An MoU has been signed with London AI company Cosine to help develop Lumen Sovereign. This is an AI model that will be built, trained and operated entirely in the UK. The project is backed by the UK Government's £500 million Sovereign AI programme. It is aimed at organisations handling highly sensitive information. These include government departments, defence, healthcare, financial services and operators of critical national infrastructure. Lumen Sovereign is intended to run on UK-based computing infrastructure, unlike AI services hosted overseas It can operate in isolated networks that are physically disconnected from the internet. The aim is to reduce the security and national security risks of sending sensitive data to foreign-owned AI platforms or cloud services. Vodafone Business will contribute expertise in secure communications, cloud services and cyber security. Cosine will lead development of the AI model. The companies will also work with other coalition members on security standards, governance and potential commercial applications. The model is expected to be trained using the Isambard-AI supercomputer, with deployment targeted by the end of this year. Isambard-AI is claimed to be the UK's most powerful public AI supercomputer, operated by the University of Bristol and housed at the National Composites Centre. It is described as among the world's fastest and greenest supercomputers, dedicated to accelerating medical, climate, and AI safety research and is backed by a £225 million government investment, it The announcement follows increased government investment in domestic AI infrastructure to ensure the UK has its own strategic AI capability rather than relying on technology built and hosted overseas. Alistair Pullen, CEO, Cosine, said: "Lumen Sovereign is about ensuring the UK has the capability, confidence and control to build frontier AI on its own terms. Vodafone Business brings deep expertise in secure connectivity, critical infrastructure and enterprise deployment, making it an important partner as we co-design Lumen Sovereign with industry." Nick Gliddon, Business Director, VodafoneThree said: "By joining Cosine's industry coalition, Vodafone Business is helping to advance an important initiative to establish sovereign AI capabilities in the UK, working alongside other industry leaders to create the trusted digital foundations businesses and public sector organisations need to innovate with confidence".