Sovereign AI invests in UK startup reinventing AI chips

OLIX, a British company designing the next generation of AI chips has secured backing from the UK Government’s Sovereign AI venture fund as part of a nine-figure fundraise announced (Thursday 30 July).

Based in London and with offices in Bristol, OLIX is developing faster, cheaper and more energy-efficient AI chips and is one of the UK’s newest unicorns – meaning it is valued at more than $1 billion. The investment reflects the UK’s ambition to back homegrown companies developing the critical technologies that will drive the modern reindustrialisation of Britain, and power the next wave of AI innovation.

As countries around the world race to build the infrastructure needed for AI, supporting British firms developing advanced chips will help strengthen the UK’s domestic AI capability, create high-skilled jobs and ensure more of the economic benefits of AI are realised here in Britain.

OLIX is reinventing the chips that underpin AI, with a view to making the technology much cheaper and better-performing than it is today. They are doing this by developing a family of ‘inference chips’ – designed specifically with AI in mind – each of which specialises in a particular part of an AI model’s ‘thinking’ process. Specialised chips working together in this way – like how work is coordinated across a factory production line – could pave the way for AI that is cheaper, uses less energy, and performs better.

Advances in chip technology will be critical to unlocking the full economic potential of AI, strengthening Britain’s domestic AI capability and ensuring more of the value created by the AI revolution is developed here in the UK.

Sovereign AI is the government’s big bet on promising early-stage AI companies to help them grow, scale and succeed from Britain, offering a range of backing to high-potential AI businesses that are starting out on British shores.  

Combining the pace and ambition of venture capital with the weight of the state behind it, Sovereign AI is moving fast, backing ambition and cutting through the red tape that so often holds brilliant ideas back, so they can go on to succeed globally.

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said:

The future of AI will be built on chips that power models. Countries that build chips will build leverage.

OLIX is exactly the kind of ambitious company we want to back through Sovereign AI. In just two years, it has established itself as one of the UK’s most exciting AI startups, developing breakthrough chip technology with the potential to help shape the future of AI.

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.

The global AI chips market is expected to reach one trillion dollars in the early 2030s. This is a field with vast opportunities for Britain. If the UK could secure just 5% of this market it would bring fifty billion dollars in revenue to the country, with tens of thousands of highly paid jobs in tech.

British companies like OLIX are already leading the next generation of AI hardware. As the market shifts from general-purpose chips to bespoke AI hardware, there is a huge opportunity for British firms to lead in the AI infrastructure of the future.  

Founded in 2024 by James Dacombe, OLIX is one of the UK’s most ambitious young deep-tech companies. Before founding OLIX, James established neurotechnology company CoMind. Earlier this year, at 25, James led Olix as it secured $220 million Series A financing – one of the largest Series A rounds ever raised by a UK technology company.

This backing brings the number of startups receiving equity investment from Sovereign AI to 5 since it launched, and the overall number of startups receiving Sovereign AI backing – including support accessing compute – to 11.

Sovereign AI Head of Ventures Joséphine Kant said: 

I left my first meeting with James convinced he’d be one of the most important founders of his generation.

OLIX is completely rethinking what an inference chip should be from first principles and doing it from the UK. The company is two years old and already one of the most ambitious hardware businesses in Britain.

James not only wants to win globally, but he’s also proud of where he’s from. You can see both in the name he chose for his holding company: Bletchley Industries.

All of the startups Sovereign AI supports have a meaningful presence here in the UK, and create well paid jobs right across the country – supporting the Government’s ambition for good growth in every postcode. These startups are all firmly anchored in the UK with either their founders, leadership, operating headquarters or a large proportion of their talent based here in Britain.