Innovate UK funding for frontier AI SMEs

Frontier AI: SME Champions, Phase 1 competition

Innovate UK is offering up to £3.1 million in grant funding for UK small and medium-sized businesses developing ambitious artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies.

The Frontier AI: SME Champions, Phase 1 competition will support early-stage projects that can show the technical potential of new AI innovations and their route to commercial growth.

For this competition, ‘frontier AI’ means technology that can either:

• achieve state-of-the-art performance against recognised benchmarks
• provide a genuinely new capability not currently available

Applications must align with one of four priority themes:

• AI-enabled health and life sciences
• advanced materials with AI
• secure AI for national security and defence
• AI safety and assurance technologies

Projects must focus on innovation in areas such as AI model or system design, training methods, learning algorithms or control algorithms.

What can you apply for

This competition is the first phase of a proposed three-stage funding route intended to help promising UK AI businesses develop and scale. Phase 1 projects should test whether a technically ambitious idea can work in practice. They must also:

• have total eligible costs of between £150,000 and £250,000
• last between one and three months
• start by 1 April 2027 and end by 30 June 2027
• be carried out in the UK

In phase 1, you can apply for grant funding covering up to 70% of eligible costs for micro and small organisations, and up to 60% for medium-sized organisations.

Applications close at 11am on Wednesday 11 November 2026.

Only successful phase 1 applicants will be invited to apply to phase 2. For full competition details and how to apply, visit the Innovation Funding Service website.

Potential applicants can join an online briefing event on 7 October 2026 to find out more.

First published 2 October 2026