AI Champions: Frontier AI Phase 1

UK registered SME businesses can apply for a share of up to £3 million to deliver feasibility studies for frontier artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) technologies with a clear route defensible scale-up. This is funded by Innovate UK.

Competition opens: Tuesday 17 March 2026 Competition closes: Wednesday 29 April 2026 11:00am

This competition is now closed.

Competition sections

• Summary
• Eligibility
• Scope
• Dates
• How to apply
• Supporting information

Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest a minimum of £3 million on Frontier AI. This funding is from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation and is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. The aim of this competition is to advance the development of state of the art artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the UK. We will fund UK SMEs to validate the technical feasibility of ambitious AI, and ML innovations that could deliver step-change improvements in capability and enable new products, services or platforms. In this competition series, Frontier AI refers to be any AI and ML systems that deliver state of the art benchmark performance against or genuinely new to the world capability in a clearly specified area. This advance must be attributable to innovation in one or more of the following:

• model, system architecture
• training methodology
• core control or learning algorithm This is a three-phase stage-gated funding pipeline approach, we will support the next wave of UK AI Champions, from early technical validation through to scale-up. This competition is Phase 1 of the pipeline. We are seeking ambitious AI and ML innovations grounded in strong scientific evidence and engineering breakthroughs, with the potential to become scalable products and services that will create and shape new markets. Phase 1 is intended to de-risk technical feasibility and generate robust evidence that the core approach works in practice. Progression to Phase 2 will depend on Business Case approvals, Phase 1 outcomes and the launch of a separate Phase 2 competition. Only successful Phase 1 applicants will be invited to apply to Phase 2. Funding for Phase 2 and Phase 3 of this opportunity is subject to business case approval by the Department of Science for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and HM Treasury. Your proposal must deliver one or more of the following:
• proof of concept of architecture or subsystem component
• technical validation of capability of system or subsystem component
• state of the art performance of existing capability
• ability of architecture and business model to scale
• demonstrate a clear path for access to data
• demonstrate strategy to access compute infrastructure and quantify requirement for compute At the end of the project, you will be required to submit a technical whitepaper summarising:
• technical progress and outcomes: Concise description of what was built and learned in Phase 1
• evidence and validation: Quantified results against pre-defined success criteria, test conditions and a clear statement of remaining technical risks and limitations
• innovation defensibility plan
• phase 2 readiness and delivery plan: Clear and explicit translation of Phase 1 evidence into Phase 2 objectives
• business scaling assumptions and investability Phase 2 of this series will enable projects to develop demonstrators of the innovation you developed in Phase 1 and we would expect you to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) by 2 points in TRL scale. For Phase 2 projects you will be able to submit applications up to 12 months long with costs of up to £1 million. In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it. Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have 2% chance of success. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £150,000 and £250,000.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Who can apply

Your project Your project must:

• have total costs between £150,000 and £250,000
• last between 3 to 6 months
• start by 1st August 2026
• end 31st January 2027 Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK. Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition. Lead organisation To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered SME. More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules. Subcontractors Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition. Number of applications A business can only lead on one application. Sanctions This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups. Use of animals in research and innovation Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance. Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation. Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

Previous applications

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition. We will not award you funding if you have:

• failed to exploit a previously funded project
• an overdue independent accountant’s report
• failed to comply with grant terms and conditions Innovate UK may withhold a grant payment at any time if you have any outstanding sums due to us in relation to other projects.

Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)

This competition provides funding to enterprises using the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme. The Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Scheme can be viewed on the subsidy database here: SC10780. This is in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk). Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage. EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. See the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation. In the ‘Project details’ section of your application you will be asked questions to indicate if State Aid or Subsidy applies to your organisation. Further Information If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations. You must not do anything which could cause a breach of Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom. This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries. This award is classified as a Subsidy which does not form part of your Minimal Financial Assistance or De Minimis allowance.

Funding

A minimum of £3 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. Funding will be in the form of a grant. We reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions. If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity. For Feasibility Studies and Industrial Research in Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation Funding available for your eligible project costs of:
• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation For more information on company sizes, refer to the company accounts guidance. If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003. Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.

Your proposal

The aim of this competition is to advance the development of state of the art artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the UK. We will fund UK SMEs to validate the technical feasibility of ambitious AI, and ML innovations that could delivery step-change improvements in capability and enable new products, services or platforms. In this competition series, Frontier AI refers to be any AI and ML systems that deliver state of the art benchmark performance against or genuinely new to the world capability in a clearly specified area. This advance must be attributable to innovation in one or more of the following:

• model and system architecture
• training methodology
• core control and learning algorithm Your project must focus on novel AI and ML technology and methodology development and validate the objectives of Phase 1 outcomes with clear metrics. We are looking for applications with a clear route to defensibility, such as protectable IP, proprietary data advantage, specialist know-how or other credible barriers to entry, with a path to scale. Projects must start at a Technology Readiness Level of 3 or below at time of application. Your technology must have in principle the ability to scale at pace, but you are not required to prove or validate scalability during Phase 1. Your project must demonstrate the ability of your technology to work in principle. You can focus in demonstrating at least the key critical component and you can utilise synthetic and simulated data for validation. You need to demonstrate how you will achieve state of the art performance if capability already exists, or new to the world capability if this genuinely novel capability. Funding will be reserved for projects in which AI is the core technical contribution and the main source of operational advantage. Your proposal must deliver (Phase 1):
• proof of concept prototype of the whole stack or the core architecture or critical subsystem component
• a clear validation methodology against predefined metrics
• evidence of technical novelty
• a scaling rationale for the technology and business model
• a technical white paper To be in scope of this competition your project must sufficiently describe:
• Serviceable market and customers
• Background IP and route to defensibility
• Technical novelty and benchmarked validation
• One key uncertainty you will resolve during Phase 1 Portfolio approach We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities, research categories and themes. We call this a portfolio approach.

Specific themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following: Theme 1, AI-Enabled Health and Life Sciences. Making the UK the best place to develop and deploy AI for drug discovery, development and manufacturing of medicines, clinical trials, and healthcare delivery. You must focus on one of the following priorities:

• predictive healthcare
• medicines discovery
• medicines manufacturing optimisation
• genomics and multi-omics Theme 2, Advanced Materials with AI. Building a world-leading AI-first materials R&D capability (including applications in aerospace, net zero technologies, defence and semiconductors) You must focus on one of the following priorities:
• material prediction, generative models & multi objective optimisation
• physics-ML models for discovery and simulation acceleration
• multimodal knowledge discovery platforms Theme 3, Secure AI for National Security & Defence (NS&D). Enable the UK’s defence sector to become a leading integrator of secure AI-enhanced command & control and AI enabled sensors. You must focus on one of the following priorities:
• AI driven assured multi-source fusion and analytics for distributed heterogeneous information, multimodal systems for decision support
• edge autonomy and robust decision, control AI systems, Low-Swap inference, quantum-AI & semiconductor-AI for novel underwater sensors
• secure and robust AI, ML driven signal processing, AI for acoustic signal processing & digital EW UKRI is committed to maximising the contribution that intellectual and knowledge assets (including intellectual property), arising from research and innovation we fund, can make to supporting national security and defence, including through dual use. Please see UKRI published guidance on National Security and Defence research for more information Theme 4, Fundamental AI. Advancing foundational AI capabilities that can underpin multiple sectors and future applications. You must focus on one of the following priorities:
• abstract reasoning and generalisation
• novel AI, ML architectures & methodologies, online learning and world model learning systems
• generalisable explainable AI

Research categories

We will fund feasibility projects and industrial research projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that:

• do not sufficiently provide a quantified serviceable addressable market
• do not sufficiently provide clear background IP ownership or rights
• do not sufficiently provide a specific defensibility route
• do not align with the competition theme and specific priority areas
• do not sufficiently provide a named baseline with metrics and numeric targets for validation
• do not sufficiently address the scope of the competition
• are primarily literature review studies, requirement gathering, without substantive experimental R&D
• propose routine integration, deployment, orchestration or productisation of existing AI tools or third-party models without novel AI or ML development
• are not delivering measurable and specific objectives
• are primarily routine integration or deployment of existing AI tools without substantive technical innovation
• don’t have clear technical novelty and feasibility challenge
• do not result in defensible foreground IP
• focus primarily on-non AI, ML R&D and development (cross-cutting projects)
• develop fully autonomous targeting
• have the primary purpose of developing hardware, including sensor hardware, quantum hardware, platforms or other enabling infrastructure, where AI is only a secondary feature, add on analytics layer or downstream application We cannot fund projects that are:
• dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
• dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Before you start

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start. Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

• that all the information provided in the application is correct
• your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
• all sections of the application are marked as complete
• if collaborative, that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs) You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline. What we ask you The application is split into four sections:

1. Project details.
2. Application questions.
3. Finances.
4. Project Impact. Accessibility and Inclusion We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us. You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance. We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline. You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

1. Project details

This section provides background for your application and is not scored. Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers. Application team Decide which people from your organisation will work with you on the project and invite those people to help complete the application. Application details Give your project’s title, start date and duration. Research category Select the type of research you will undertake. Project summary Describe your project briefly and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign the right experts to assess your application. Your answer can be up to 400 words long. Public description Describe your project in detail and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This can happen before you start your project. Your answer can be up to 400 words long. Scope Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. Your answer must sufficiently explain:

• serviceable market and customers
• how your solution will be defensible and the technical novelty
• what new-to-the-world or state of the art AI capability you will validate If your answer is not sufficiently detailed or your project is not in scope, it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why. Your answer can be up to 800 words long.

2. Application questions

Text update 13/03/26: Additional guidance added. The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1 to 7. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out more about how our assessors assess and how we select applications for funding. You must answer all questions. You must not include any website addresses or links (URLs) in your answers. If you do, your application will be made ineligible. Question 1. Themes (not scored) Select one main theme from the specific themes list in the ‘Scope’ section of this competition. You cannot choose more than one.

• Theme 1 AI-Enabled Health and Life Sciences
• Theme 2 Advanced Materials with AI
• Theme 3, Secure AI for National Security & Defence (NS&D)
• Theme 4 Fundamental AI Question 2. Applicant location (not scored) You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation and any partners or subcontractors working on your project. We are collecting this information to understand more about the geographical location of all applicants. Question 3. Animal testing (not scored) Will your project involve any trials with animals or animal testing? You must select one option:
• Yes
• No We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare. Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance. Question 4. Permits and licences (not scored) Will you have the correct permits and licences in place to carry out your project? We are unable to fund projects which do not have the correct permits or licences in place by your project start date. You must select one option:
• Yes
• No
• In the process of being applied for
• Not applicable