Government backs UK AI chip unicorn through Sovereign AI fund

The UK government has announced it has invested in AI chip startup OLIX through its Sovereign AI venture fund as part of the company’s latest nine-figure fundraising round.

London-based OLIX, which also has offices in Bristol, is developing a new generation of AI chips designed to deliver faster performance, lower costs and improved energy efficiency. The company has become one of the UK’s newest unicorns after reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The investment marks the fifth equity backing made by the government’s Sovereign AI fund since it launched. The initiative aims to help promising UK AI companies grow and scale while supporting the country’s domestic AI industry.

According to the government, supporting companies developing advanced semiconductor technology will strengthen the UK’s AI capabilities as well as ensuring more of the economic benefits of AI remain in Britain.

OLIX is developing a family of specialist inference chips designed specifically for AI workloads. Rather than relying on a single general-purpose processor, each chip is designed to handle a different part of an AI model’s inference process. The company believes this approach could make AI systems cheaper to run, more energy efficient and higher performing.

The government said the global AI chip market is expected to reach $1 trillion in the early 2030s. It added that securing 5 per cent of that market could generate $50 billion in revenue for the UK and support tens of thousands of highly skilled technology jobs.

Founded in 2024 by James Dacombe, OLIX has grown rapidly. Earlier this year, the company raised $220 million in Series A funding, one of the largest Series A rounds secured by a UK technology company.

The latest investment brings the number of companies to receive equity funding from Sovereign AI to five. Overall, 11 startups have received support through the programme, including funding or access to computing resources.

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said: “The future of AI will be built on chips that power models. Countries that build chips will build leverage.

“If we want Britain to lead in AI, we need to back the technologies that sit underneath it. That’s how we’ll attract investment, create high-skilled jobs and ensure the UK remains a country that builds the future of AI, not just uses it.”