This is our moment: Locai Labs welcomes UK government's landmark AI commitment

The UK Government’s major package of reforms and investment to help UK AI startups scale globally is hugely welcome. As the announcement says, “we have the talent” and “we have the startups”.

We also have the ambition.

 The UK has a long and distinguished history of innovation from steam engines to the World Wide Web. We’ve built systems that changed the world and reimagined what is possible. But today, AI - the technology that is reshaping our world more profoundly than any other - is largely built elsewhere, on someone else’s infrastructure, to someone else’s standards and the key decisions are made in the boardrooms of a literal handful of companies in the US and China.

Infrastructure Independence isn’t merely technical, it’s fundamental. When it comes to artificial intelligence - a technology that will influence our economy, the delivery of public services and national security - we shouldn’t be a passenger. We should be in the driving seat. Controlling our own data, our own infrastructure and our own AI models and algorithms to ensure they are serving our best interests.

We believe the UK needs foundational AI that is authored. Not borrowed. Not outsourced. Authored. By all of us.

Which is why we’re building the AI to take on Open AI, ChatGPT and Big Tech AI.

We are committed to giving users and communities agency in shaping - and holding accountable - the AI tools they use. We are building a sustainable, transparent, community-driven alternative to Big Tech AI for consumers and enterprise that is best-in-class and privacy-first by design.

Our vision is of Advanced AI built with its users, not on them, and an approach to AI development that considers the public good, not just private gain.

We are bullish on both the UK and AI, and welcome the UK government’s major package of new reforms and investment.

Equally key is the cultural shift - already underway - whereby UK AI companies and investors collaborate to get further, faster, together.

Collaboration is baked into our mindset - it’s why we are proud to partner with the UK AI Infrastructure company Ori who provided the GPUs to train our Locai L1-Large LLM (the UK’s first foundational LLM) in UK data centres powered by 100% renewable energy.

The UK government’s announcement is a big step in the right direction, and we stand ready to do our bit and play our part to help fuel a technology-led renaissance for the UK that ensures we have independent, sustainable AI for the benefit of all.