London, 10 June 2026
At the AI Summit during London Tech Week, UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan announced fresh funding, mentoring and rules to help British developers build AI tools openly and at scale. He said the big question for AI is not just what it can do, but who gets to shape it. GOV.UK
Free Computing Power for Young Developers
Last weekend, the government and chipmaker NVIDIA ran a “Hack for Impact” hackathon, where hundreds of developers built AI tools for public services using open city data.
The strongest teams will share a new Open-Source AI Builder Fund worth over £500,000. The prize is 160,000 hours of processing power on the UK’s AI Research Resource, the country’s national supercomputer network for AI work, enough to turn rough ideas into working public tools. GOV.UK
Winning projects include:
- Codeborough: helps Londoners find the nearest library, toilet or polling station.
- WaitWise: spots NHS patients stuck on waiting lists and drafts follow-up letters.
- Stella: finds unclaimed grants for high-street shops and warns of roadworks.
- NeMo-Ray: keeps 999 emergency calls working via satellite when mobile masts fail, protecting about 300,000 frontline responders.
Mentoring and a Youth Voice in Government Winners will be paired with experts from i.AI, the government’s in-house AI team, through a new mentoring scheme. GOV.UK - A new Open-Source AI Dev Board will give ten UK developers under 30 a direct line into government. Narayan will chair it himself, with roundtables planned through 2026. GOV.UK
More Money for AI Students
The Spark AI Scholars Programme, which funds top AI students at UK universities, is also being expanded. An extra £4 million takes total government backing past £17 million, supporting up to 50 students with placements and mentorship at startups after graduation.
Better-Looking Data Centres
Narayan announced a new design contest with the Royal Institute of British Architects to rethink data centres, the large buildings full of computer servers that power AI. The aim is to make them more attractive, sustainable, and useful to the local community rather than just being plain boxes. GOV.UK
Clear Rules for Workplace Robots
The Regulatory Innovation Office and the Health and Safety Executive will work with industry to issue the first joint guidance on how robots can work safely alongside people at work. Businesses have long said unclear rules slow down robot adoption. GOV.UK
The Goal
Narayan said the government wants Britain to become the global home for open-source AI developers, the kind of open approach that gave the world the web. Computer Weekly - Source: Official UK government announcement, GOV.UK, 10 June 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-backing-for-open-source-ai-builders-data-centre-design-challenge-and-robotics-partnership
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