Innovate UK Frontier AI Discovery
Innovate UK·United Kingdom
Short discovery projects of £25,000 to £50,000 total eligible costs to advance frontier AI, machine learning and foundation models in the UK; the 2026 round has closed.
What you get
“Your project's total eligible costs must be between £25,000 and £50,000.”
Can you apply
UK registered organisations can apply, including businesses of any size, research organisations, research and technology organisations, charities, not-for-profits, public sector organisations and NGOs.
When
Not open right now, and no next round has been announced.
Past rounds
- Frontier AI Discovery 2026closed 10 Jun 2026
What Innovate UK funds
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, funds UK-registered businesses to bring high-impact innovations to market through competitive, time-boxed grant competitions, including a recent series of frontier AI and sovereign AI competitions run with DSIT.
Everything Innovate UK funds →Details
Part of Innovate UK's Frontier AI R&D Consortia series. Projects run up to three months, must start by 1 October 2026 and end by 31 January 2027. A minimum of £2.5 million was allocated to this competition. Amounts shown are total eligible project costs, not the grant itself; Innovate UK funds a percentage of eligible costs.
Read off the Innovate UK page on 29 Aug 2026. Funders move amounts and eligibility without announcing it, so confirm any figure here before you count on it.