Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
New UK government department, one of three that succeeded the abolished Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
DBIST was created on 20 July 2026 when DSIT was dissolved, absorbing most of its industrial and technology remit, while its AI brief is shared jointly with the Cabinet Office under Kanishka Narayan.
Last refreshed: 26 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
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The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) is a UK Government department led by Jonathan Reynolds, combining business and trade policy with Science and technology functions.
It was created on 20 July 2026 when the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which had existed since 2023 and overseen the AI Opportunities Action Plan and sovereign AI compute investment, was dissolved and merged with the former Department for Business and Trade. The change followed Andy Burnham's appointment as prime minister as part of a wider three-way split of DSIT's functions.
Some UK tech-industry figures warned against scrapping a single dedicated technology department, arguing that splitting AI and digital policy across three departments risks losing coherence even as DBIST becomes the government's largest single home for industrial and technology policy.
DBIST inherits DSIT's technology remit
DBIST came into being on 20 July 2026 as the government dismantled DSIT, absorbing the bulk of the old department's industrial and trade-facing work on top of its existing business and trade brief. Digital transformation and online-harms policy went elsewhere, to a rebuilt DCMS.
AI policy did not come to DBIST whole either: the department shares that brief with the Cabinet Office, where Kanishka Narayan holds the ministerial title he carried over from DSIT. That leaves DBIST as the largest single receiving department by headcount and programme volume, even without sole ownership of the one policy area that drew the most attention. Precisely how DSIT's staff, budgets and contracts split between the three inheritors is not yet public.