Efficient, Structured and Controllable AI Systems

Description Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £1.66 million on industrial research for novel reusable AI mechanisms. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. The aim of this competition is to advance the development of novel reusable artificial intelligence (AI) mechanisms that will form the foundations for the next generation of AI and machine learning (ML) systems of the future. The driving strategic imperative is that future capabilities beyond the current state of the art, require fundamentally different underlying architectures and learning systems to advance beyond current limitations. Resource adaptive learning mechanisms, intervention tested and counterfactual prediction, graph-native learning topologies and representation modelling for scalable primitive learning components are fundamental components for adaptive scalable learning systems. We will fund UK SMEs to experimentally validate novel AI mechanisms that could underpin future generations of efficient, structured, adaptive and controllable AI systems. For this competition, novel mechanistic AI means an AI or ML system in which the principal technical advance is attributable to one or more of: a new learning or credit assignment mechanism an adaptive or dynamically reconfigurable architecture a learned causal or intervention grounded model a graph-native or relational computational architecture a compositional representation, skill or operator mechanism a mechanism, model or architecture exerting measurable control over an agent When an existing frontier model is used, applications must demonstrate that the proposed advance remains technically material above the base model. The competition is intended primarily for: research intensive AI startups deep tech SMEs university spinouts pre-commercial companies developing proprietary AI technology Technology readiness level (TRL) Projects must start at TRL 1, 2 or 3 and we expect projects to be making an advance of 0.5 to 1 TRL during delivery. Your project must deliver all of the following: a prototype algorithm architecture or subsystem an experimental and validation environment results against named baselines or a hypothesis ablation and negative control evidence a plan for further development At the end of the project, you will be required to submit a technical whitepaper summarising: technical progress and outcomes: concise description of what was built and learned evidence and validation: quantified results against pre-defined success criteria, test conditions and a clear statement of remaining technical risks and limitations innovation defensibility plan Subject to Business Case approvals, there might be a second phase of this opportunity. If successful, we will notify you of the conditions and availability of Phase 2. There is no funding currently allocated for Phase 2. This is phase 1 of a potential 2 phase competition. In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it. Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have 4% chance of success. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief . We cannot guarantee other gover... Contains public sector information from Find a grant, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Who can apply Your project Your project must: have total costs of between £50,000 and £150,000 last between 1 and 3 months start by 1 April 2027 end by 30 June 2027 Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK. Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date. You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs . Lead organisation To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME). More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules . Subcontractors Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition. Number of ap...