Sovereign AI Fund

Lord Brennan of Canton Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to refer to the independent Competition and Markets Authority. It has conducted a major, 22-month investigation into the cloud market and is now acting. It has announced a package of actions to strengthen competition in business software and cloud services. It will be launching a strategic market status designation investigation into Microsoft’s business software system in May that will allow the CMA to examine cloud licensing and actions from Microsoft and Amazon on improving cloud interoperability and reducing egress fees. In terms of the role the AI sovereign fund might play, it is at a relatively early stage of development. Infrastructure is one of its priority areas, and we will see what opportunities come in the near future.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Berger listed a number of countries that have decided to go down another path in terms of developing sovereign AI. Can the Minister outline to us why the UK is not choosing to take that path and rather may be relying, as some of us fear, far too much on the powerful tech bros of America to supply the needs of this country?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The UK benefits from access to many international service providers, whether from America or elsewhere. The way we think about sovereignty is in ensuring that the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs to ensure that the technologies that will shape our economy do so in the interests of the UK. The reason we have focused on the areas I mentioned before for the AI sovereign fund is to increase our economic resilience and reduce strategic dependency by building areas where the UK can realistically develop a comparative advantage.