UKRI Transformative Sustainable AI Technologies

Funding for research with the potential to lead to radically new and disruptive technologies and a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has launched this opportunity to support speculative and high-risk research projects with the potential to deliver a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems. The opportunity is delivered under the flagship UKRI IS8 AI Programme and is intended to be the first in a broader programme of activities designed to ensure the UK is at the forefront of ensuring future AI systems are sustainable by design.

The opportunity focuses exclusively on the development of novel AI technologies, computational approaches, methods, tools, architectures and techniques that could significantly improve the sustainability of future AI systems. While sustainability challenges may span each of the stated impacts, applications must be technology-led and demonstrate a clear pathway to advancing the underlying AI value chain.

The opportunity aims to:

• Support potentially transformative, highly novel technologies and tools with the potential to deliver a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems.
• Develop the foundations of sustainable technologies for the future societal, economic and technological benefits, including new market opportunities for the UK.
• Strengthen the UK’s capability to design and deploy bold, ambitious sustainable AI technologies, ensuring AI contributes positively to both economic growth and environmental sustainability.
• Enable small-scale, rapid projects that generate foundational insights that can be built on in the future.
• Deliver a faster process compared to current standard funding routes, while maintaining robust decision making that is proportionate to the level of risk.

Projects should:

• Aim to disrupt existing areas of sustainable AI research or create new ones.
• Deliver research with the potential to lead to radically new and disruptive technologies and a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems.
• Adopt a risk tolerant approach utilising ways of working that encourage and enable transformative outcomes rather than incremental advances.
• Support an ambitious and capable project team with appropriate breadth and depth of expertise required to achieve the research objectives.

Applicants are encouraged to be as adventurous as possible in their thinking. UKRI will support creative and potentially unconventional ways of working. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches are welcome, although applications that consist of majority non-technical research such as purely social science, environmental, legal, policy or ethical studies will not be supported.

 Projects must start on 1 February 2027 and last for a maximum of 24 months.