The UK government is investing in AI chip developer OLIX as part of a major funding round aimed at strengthening Britain's position in the global artificial intelligence industry.
The London-based company, which also has offices in Bristol, is receiving backing from the government's Sovereign AI venture fund.
OLIX is developing specialised computer chips designed to make AI systems faster, cheaper and less energy-intensive. The company, founded in 2024, is valued at more than $1bn, making it one of Britain's newest technology "unicorns".
The investment is part of a nine-figure fundraising round announced at the end of July. It makes OLIX the fifth company to receive an equity investment from Sovereign AI since the fund was launched.
AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said the UK needed to invest in the technology underpinning AI if it wanted to remain competitive in the sector.
"The future of AI will be built on chips that power models," he said. "Countries that build chips will build leverage."
He described OLIX as an example of the type of high-growth technology company the government wanted to support.
Founded by James Dacombe, OLIX is developing a family of so-called inference chips designed for specific stages of AI models. The company says dividing tasks between specialised chips could improve performance while reducing the amount of energy and computing power required.
The global market for AI chips is expected to grow rapidly over the coming decade, with the UK government estimating it could reach $1tn in the early 2030s.
Mr Narayan said capturing 5% of that market could generate $50bn in revenue for the UK and support tens of thousands of highly skilled technology jobs.
The government says strengthening the country's domestic semiconductor and AI capabilities will help ensure more of the economic value generated by artificial intelligence is retained in the UK.
Sovereign AI was established to provide funding and other support to promising AI companies with significant operations in Britain. The government says it aims to combine venture capital investment with state backing to help companies scale internationally while keeping their businesses and jobs in the UK.
OLIX's founder, James Dacombe, previously founded neurotechnology company CoMind. At the age of 25, he led OLIX to a $220m Series A funding round earlier this year, one of the largest Series A investments raised by a UK technology company.
Joséphine Kant, head of ventures at Sovereign AI, said OLIX was taking a new approach to AI chip design.
She said the company was "completely rethinking what an inference chip should be from first principles" while building the business in Britain.
The latest investment brings the number of companies receiving equity investment from Sovereign AI to five. Including firms receiving other forms of support, such as access to computing capacity, the programme has backed 11 AI start-ups.
The government says the companies it supports have substantial operations in the UK, with founders, senior management, headquarters or significant numbers of employees based in the country.
The investment in OLIX comes as governments and technology companies around the world seek greater control over the semiconductor supply chains needed to develop and run advanced AI systems. Photo by mikemacmarketing, Wikimedia commons.
