UK adds GBP 60M to Sovereign AI Fund and opens a physical and industrial AI track

The UK government said in a Treasury press release on Oct 24 that it will put an additional GBP 60 million into its Sovereign AI Fund, which invests directly in UK AI companies, and that the fund will expand into a new focus area of physical and industrial AI covering robotics, autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing.

The measure is one line in a package of more than GBP 600 million that Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced ahead of next week's Budget; the larger items are a GBP 165 million AI biosecurity initiative, GBP 120 million more for the AI Security Institute, another GBP 60 million for Sovereign AI's R&D procurement scheme and GBP 18 million for a chip-design academy.

The release does not say how much of the fund will go to robotics or when the first physical-AI investments will be made. For scale, the largest UK robotics rounds in MEKAWIRE's database are CMR Surgical's USD 600 million and the USD 152 million Series A that London-based Humanoid raised in July.