Cosine
British air-gapped sovereign AI company built for defence, nuclear, and regulated industries.
Last refreshed: 19 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
How did Cosine beat OpenAI on coding benchmarks two years running?
Timeline for Cosine
Received 500,000 GPU hours on Isambard-AI and cornerstone role in UK Sovereign AI portfolio
European Tech Sovereignty: UK names first Sovereign AI investeesMentioned in: OpenAI takes first permanent London base
European Tech Sovereignty- What is Cosine AI?
- British sovereign AI company founded 2022 by Alistair Pullen and Yang Li, building air-gapped coding AI for defence, nuclear, and regulated industries.Source: UK DSIT announcement 16 April 2026
- How did Cosine beat OpenAI on coding benchmarks?
- Cosine outperformed OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and DeepSeek on independent coding benchmarks two consecutive years by focusing on sovereign, air-gapped deployment tuned for critical infrastructure.Source: Tech.eu 17 April 2026
- Who founded Cosine AI?
- Alistair Pullen (CEO) and Yang Li (COO), both Cambridge PhDs, founded Cosine in 2022.Source: Tech.eu 17 April 2026
- What does Cosine AI do for defence?
- Cosine builds air-gapped AI coding systems for classified nuclear, defence, and financial services infrastructure, supporting 38 programming languages with no foreign model dependencies.Source: Tech.eu 17 April 2026
- Is Cosine AI part of the UK Sovereign AI Fund?
- Yes. Cosine was named the cornerstone investee of the UK Sovereign AI Fund on 16 April 2026, receiving 500,000 GPU hours on Isambard-AI and a follow-on equity option.Source: UK DSIT 16 April 2026
Background
Founded in 2022 by Alistair Pullen (CEO) and Yang Li (COO), both Cambridge PhDs, Cosine was named cornerstone investee of the UK Sovereign AI Fund on 16 April 2026, receiving 500,000 GPU hours on Isambard-AI and an option for follow-on equity in its next funding round .
Cosine builds the only end-to-end air-gapped sovereign AI coding system built, owned, and operated entirely within Britain. Its system supports 38 programming languages including Fortran and COBOL, targets nuclear, defence, and financial-services clients, and runs entirely on-premise with no internet connections or foreign model dependencies. It has outperformed OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral AI, and DeepSeek on independent coding benchmarks for two consecutive years.
Cosine's selection by DSIT signals that the UK sovereign AI strategy is tilting toward regulated and defence applications rather than general-purpose AI. COO Yang Li framing — the UK should be an AI maker, not an AI taker — positions the company as the counterpoint to OpenAI's simultaneous opening of a permanent London office. The Sovereign AI Fund's option to follow on in Cosine's next round makes it effectively a cornerstone holding of Britain's national AI portfolio .