Vodafone Business has joined a coalition of leading British firms backing the creation of a homegrown AI model to reduce reliance on Silicon Valley.
The telecoms giant has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with London-based AI lab Cosine, which is building the nation’s first fully sovereign frontier AI model.
Backed by £500million of government funding, Lumen Sovereign will be trained in the UK using Isambard-AI, one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers.
The tool is being designed with a view to reducing the use of foreign AI tools, giving the UK’s defence, healthcare, financial and public sectors a trusted AI tech built on British values.
Vodafone Business is the latest big name to join the coalition, which already includes Natwest, BAE Systems, PWC and The Alan Turing Institute.
The coalition brings together leading organisations from across industries to strengthen the UK’s AI capability through the development of a secure, domestically trained foundation model.
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. For sovereign AI to matter, it must be designed not only for technical performance, but for the security, assurance and governance needs of the organisations that underpin our economy and national resilience.
“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. Together, we want to help ensure that advanced AI developed in the UK can be trusted, adopted and deployed by the sectors where sovereignty matters most.”
Nick Gliddon, Business Director, VodafoneThree said: “AI has the potential to transform every industry, but trust, security and sovereignty will be essential to realising its full value. 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.
“Connectivity infrastructure is the backbone that turns AI ambition into real-world impact. It gives organisations the capacity, resilience and security to move from experimentation to deployment, and will be critical to making future AI applications work at scale. Through VodafoneThree’s £11 billion privately funded network investment, we are building the AI-ready connectivity foundation the UK needs, supported by a regulated and guaranteed plan to deliver nationwide 5G Standalone coverage by 2034.”
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