The UK is accelerating its ambition to become a global leader in frontier artificial intelligence (AI), with two new Innovate UK funding calls to support early-stage innovation and future large-scale development.
Together these opportunities form part of a pipeline to identify, validate and scale world-leading AI capabilities, spanning everything from breakthrough algorithms to AI-enabled materials discovery.
Both calls shared a goal to support state-of-the-art AI and machine learning (ML) that can unlock new products, services and markets. “Frontier AI” in this context refers to systems that either achieve world-leading benchmark performance, or deliver genuinely novel capabilities in a specific area not yet seen globally.
These advances are expected to arise from innovation in model and system architectures, training methodologies and core learning or control algorithms.
Call 1: AI Champions – Frontier AI Phase 1
This competition targets ambitious UK SMEs looking to validate breakthrough AI technologies and position themselves for scale-up.
Funding available: up to £3 million total
Project size: £150k- £250k
Opening Date: 17 March 2026
Deadline: 29 April 2026 (11:00am UK time)
Projects should focus on technical feasibility, helping to de-risk bold ideas and demonstrate real-world potential.
Successful proposals will deliver outcomes such as proof-of-concept architectures or subsystems; validation of technical capability; evidence of state-of-the-art performance; clear strategies for data access and compute requirements; early plans for scaling and commercialisation.
At project completion, teams must produce a technical whitepaper capturing:
- validated results and performance metrics
- remaining technical risks
- a defensibility strategy
- readiness for the next phase
This is the first stage of a three-phase pipeline, with future phases supporting demonstrators and scale-up (subject to government approval).
Call 2: Frontier AI Discovery (opening on 14 April)
A second, complementary call focuses on early-stage feasibility and consortium building, particularly for large-scale, cross-sector AI innovation.
Funding available: up to £2.5 million total
Project size: £25k-£50k
Opening Date: 14 April 2026
Deadline: 10 June 2026 (11:00am UK time)
This programme is open to UK-registered organisations of all sizes, with a strong emphasis on forming collaborative consortia.
Projects must align with one of four strategic missions:
- AI-enabled health and life sciences
- Advanced materials with AI
- Secure AI for defence and national security
- Fundamental AI and foundation models
Notably, at least 25% of funded projects will focus on foundation models -highly generalisable AI systems with cross-sector applications.
Embedding AI into Discovery and Design
For the materials research and innovation community, these calls present a major opportunity to embed AI into materials discovery and design, accelerate innovation in net zero, aerospace, semiconductors and defence and develop next-generation modelling and simulation capabilities
The “Advanced Materials with AI” theme is particularly aligned with the Henry Royce Institute’s Materials 4.0 Challenge Area to accelerate materials innovation through digital and AI-enabled approaches.
Funding decisions will consider:
- ambition and technical excellence
- alignment with national priorities
- credibility of delivery and scale-up plans
- applicants track record
Key Dates
AI Champions (SMEs)
- Opens: 17 March 2026
- Closes: 29 April 2026
Frontier AI Discovery (all organisations)
- Opens: 14 April 2026
- Closes: 10 June 2026
