Red Hat: UK Must Achieve Digital Sovereignty to Realize AI Ambitions
-
Published Time: 2025-09-25T17:00:00Z
Article
AI Strategy
Red Hat: The UK Needs Digital Sovereignty to Fulfil AI Dream
September 25, 2025
5 mins
Share
Are independent, sovereign technology systems essential in today's day and age? | Credit: Red Hat
Red Hat and Great Wave AI executives warn that digital sovereignty will be an urgent requirement if the UK wants to lead the world in AI adoption
Company portals
UK Government
Tags
Red HatUKAIAI Action PlanGreat Wave AITechnologyDigital Sovereignty
Following its rise to power in the summer of 2024, the UK's Labour Party has repeatedly stressed its goal of transforming the nation into an AI powerhouse.
"Artificial intelligence will drive incredible change in our country," says UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
"From teachers personalising lessons, to supporting small businesses with their record-keeping, to speeding up planning applications, it has the potential to transform the lives of working people."
US President Donald Trump's recent state visit delivered numerous investment pledges from leading American corporations, promising commitment to Britain's AI future.
Although Starmer and his colleagues are enthused by the practical advantages AI might bring to British citizens' lives – alongside the clear economic benefits the technology could provide the British economy – they're also seeking to establish some measure of digital independence through these investments.
Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK | Credit: UK Parliament
Understanding digital sovereignty
Digital sovereignty has become a pressing topic currently.
Put simply, it describes the condition of maintaining control over one's digital infrastructure, including data centres, AI systems, or any technologies required for enabling digital life as we understand it.
According to Jonny Williams, Red Hat's Chief Digital Adviser for the UK Public Sector, establishing technological independence will be crucial for the nation in upcoming years.
"Digital sovereignty isn't a luxury – it's an urgent, practical requirement if the UK is to lead in AI," he says.
"AI sovereignty allows the UK to have greater control over who accesses local data and how it is used."
Such an approach tackles privacy and security issues while enabling public services and enterprises to implement technology more effectively.
Nevertheless, Jonny cautions that "true sovereignty is built on more than just hardware", indicating that data holds equal importance.
Jonny Williams, Chief Digital Adviser for the UK at Red Hat
The strength of open source technologies
One pathway toward digital sovereignty, particularly regarding AI, involves utilising open source platforms.
A fresh partnership between Red Hat and Great Wave AI demonstrates exactly how this approach functions.
Jack Perschke serves as Co-Founder and CEO of Great Wave, and he characterises large language models (LLMs) as being "like crude oil".
Essentially, they possess value, but require processing to become practical, beneficial products.
His platform functions as the processing facility, converting raw model capabilities into specialised tools for organisations.
"In an era where prompts and responses can't be encrypted inside the model itself, the safest option is often running it in your own environment," Jack explains.
This perspective aligns with Jonny's views as well, Jack's partner in this collaboration.
"Open source AI fosters provides the flexibility and transparency for the UK to host, audit and scale AI entirely on-shore," he says.
"This is critical for establishing a secure and trusted AI ecosystem."
Jack Perschke, Co-Founder and CEO of Great Wave
The three-tier implementation challenge
Jack identifies three separate levels within Britain's current AI market, each displaying different degrees of maturity and potential.
The upper tier encompasses Gen AI integrated into enterprise platforms like Salesforce incorporating AI into customer relationship management.
Personal productivity applications such as Microsoft Copilot and industry-specific assistants like Harvey for legal services form the lower level.
Nevertheless, Jack identifies the most significant opportunity in the middle tier, which he characterises as "bespoke, organisation-specific, multi-agent data transformation".
He calculates adoption of this vital middle tier "at a fraction of 1%" despite its considerable value proposition.
Without adequate orchestration platforms, organisations face the risk of generating unmanaged "AI sprawl" featuring inconsistent standards and uncontrolled agent interactions.
Developing national capabilities
Although the recent influx of international investments in Britain from companies like Nvidia, Microsoft and Google has been celebrated as revolutionary, obtaining skilled professionals to manage these future initiatives will be essential for any achievement.
"AI sovereignty requires an investment into homegrown talent and companies that can transition the UK from pilots to sovereign AI at scale," Jonny explains.
This encompasses building workforce competencies and encouraging innovations in areas such as small language models that preserve sovereignty without sacrificing speed or innovation.
The UK Home Office's US$3m contract for first-year discovery and design demonstrates the substantial expenses organisations encounter when developing AI capabilities from the ground up.
Great Wave's platform provides a tested alternative that corresponds with emerging regulatory demands.
Donald Trump's recent state visit to the UK brought news of several large investments from US tech companies in Britain's AI future | Credit: UK Government
Strategic guidance
For organisations beginning their AI journey, Jack suggests bringing "all AI initiatives under one working group" and prioritising them by complexity to achieve early successes before advancing to more challenging applications.
He stresses that "agent orchestration is inevitable" and recommends organisations to "decide early whether to build or buy it".
Jonny concludes that Britain's success relies on merging "world-class infrastructure, open source capabilities and local expertise" to provide AI innovation that is "not only powerful, but secure, transparent and trusted by the public".
The partnership between Red Hat and Great Wave AI exemplifies a pragmatic method for making AI implementation more sovereign and scalable for UK organisations transitioning from pilot projects into production while retaining control over data, expenses and future strategy.
Company Portals
UK Government
Related Content
