AI grants in UK for 2026
UK AI funding centers on Innovate UK (£700M+/year) plus the new ARIA agency (£800M over 10 years for moonshot research).
Key programs
- Innovate UK Smart Grants
- ARIA programs
- Future Fund Breakthrough
- AI for Net Zero
The funding landscape
Innovate UK Smart Grants fund AI projects £100K–£2M as 70% grants + 30% match. ARIA funds high-risk AI research (£500K–£10M) with much lighter governance. AI for Net Zero adds climate-AI specifically.
Application tip
UK applications reward narrative over technical specifics. Show clear UK economic benefit — jobs created, sectors served, IP retained in UK.
AI grants in our directory (2)
Frontier AI Benchmarking Datasets
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £4.5 million. This programme focuses on the creation, curation, annotation and exploitation of FAIR-data and benchmarks which will fuel AI in…
Frontier AI Discovery
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2.5 million to develop feasibility studies for frontier AI and foundation models. This funding is from Innovate UK. Eligibility: This compe…
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