The UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) launched the second wave of its Sovereign AI procurement around 3 July, worth £96m in total, The Register reported1. The competition offers contracts of up to £5m each, running to March 2030, across seven sectors: scientific discovery, health and social care, defence, cybersecurity, transport, energy and public services.
DSIT has changed instrument between waves. The first round took equity stakes and handed GPU compute hours to seven firms; this one buys finished outcomes through open procurement instead. The switch sits against the £1.1bn AI Hardware Plan London announced in June, and it marks a bet on buying capability rather than owning it.
Britain's model diverges sharply from Brussels. Where the EU builds shared, pan-European dependency through joint frameworks, Britain builds national capability it controls alone. Whether DSIT signs real contracts inside the window it claims, rather than leaving a closed competition as paperwork, is the open test.
