PA Consulting joins sovereign AI coalition Cosine to power AI in nuclear sector
As the UK looks to apply AI to key national infrastructure, questions of technological sovereignty are coming to the fore. To help ensure security and reliability when utilising large language models in the nuclear sector – among others – PA Consulting has been inducted into a new coalition to boost Britain’s sovereign AI capacity.
AI deployment is inconsistent around the world – as different countries, regions, and sectors see large-scale adoption slowed by strong regulations around data, privacy and copyright. At the same time, while the bosses of many US-based technology giants regularly make incendiary political statements, leaders in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East are – not unjustifiably – concerned about their ability to build and run AI systems with some level of independence from foreign technology providers with respect to data, technology infrastructure, operations, and legal structures.
For countries, the concerns might be at the national-security and domestic-economic level, while organisations might be more focused on privacy, intellectual property, and geopolitical issues. But on both levels, sovereign AI is billed as helping to address worries around concerning control, governance, and dependence. While the term has no single agreed scope, sovereign AI is loosely defined as national or regional efforts to increase control over AI capabilities, and reduce critical dependence on foreign providers.
As many economies push for greater sovereignty on this basis, PA Consulting has joined a coalition led by London-based software developer Cosine to co-design Lumen Sovereign. The UK’s first fully sovereign frontier AI model for highly regulated and nationally important sectors will see PA, Cosine and other industry leaders to help shape the UK’s sovereign AI capability.
According to a release from PA – which is now entirely owned by Jacobs, a US-headquartered technical professional services firm based in Dallas – one of the first priorities is developing a nuclear-trained large language model for the UK’s civil and defence nuclear sectors. This will be “designed to help organisations address important challenges including skills and capability gaps, retaining critical expertise, and making decades of nuclear knowledge more accessible.”
Alwin Magimay, global head of AI at PA, argued, “The case for a nuclear-specific large language model is strong. Civil nuclear organisations need AI systems that understand the language of the sector, can support highly specialised workflows and can be deployed in ways that align with operational and governance requirements. PA Consulting brings exactly the kind of sector insight needed to build something genuinely useful for the industry. Together, we want to explore how a focused, high-performance Large Language Model can support civil nuclear organisations with practical applications across knowledge management, engineering support and operational delivery.”
Expanding applications
Magimay added that by working with Cosine, PA could help “make sovereign AI a practical capability for critical sectors”. This will begin with applications that “build on PA’s work with Sellafield and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.”
Carl Dalby, group head of AI and digital for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, said to that end, “The nuclear sector holds decades of specialist information, embedded in very experienced people, technical records, and complex systems. Sovereign AI offers a significant opportunity to preserve this information, make it easier to access and support better decisions across the nuclear enterprise. Working together, this initiative represents an important step in developing secure, trusted AI designed around the needs, standards, and responsibilities of the UK nuclear sector.”
Elsewhere, the coalition aims to support the adoption of sovereign AI applications across other highly regulated sectors, including government, defence, financial services, healthcare, and critical national infrastructure. This aligns with the UK government’s growing focus on sovereign AI as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly important to national security, economic resilience and critical infrastructure.
Alistair Pullen, CEO at Cosine, noted, “The collaboration builds on PA’s work helping organisations apply AI responsibly and effectively in complex, regulated environments, while supporting the growth of the UK’s AI ecosystem of talent and innovative new British tech companies. PA combines deep sector expertise with data, digital and AI capabilities to help organisations move from experimentation to operational deployment.”
