The UK government is preparing to do something that sounds almost radical in its simplicity: buy things from its own companies. Specifically, AI chips from British firms, in a direct attempt to keep those firms from packing up and moving to the US.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall is set to outline the plan during London Tech Week, which runs June 8-14. The initiative could involve procurement or support reaching up to £100 million, targeting the domestic chip industry at a moment when the global race for AI hardware supremacy is getting genuinely uncomfortable for countries that aren’t the US or China.
What the UK is actually doing
The semiconductor purchases are expected to launch alongside a broader AI Hardware Plan, also slated for June 2026. Together, they represent the government’s most concrete move yet toward what policymakers like to call “technological sovereignty.” In English: making sure Britain can actually produce the critical technology it needs rather than importing all of it.
No specific chip companies have been named as beneficiaries. But the ecosystem the government wants to nurture already has a poster child. Fractile, a UK-based startup founded in 2022 that focuses on inference chips, raised $220 million in May 2026. The question has always been whether that talent stays British.
