27-year-old building Trump-proof AI for Britain

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Alistair Pullen’s British AI company Cosine is fast-tracking the launch of its homegrown AI system, Lumen Sovereign, to July in response to recent U.S. restrictions limiting British access to American AI technologies. The system aims to provide secure, locally run AI solutions for major UK companies and government bodies, addressing data sovereignty concerns and reducing reliance on foreign platforms.

Alistair Pullen, co-founder of the British AI company Cosine, is accelerating the development of a homegrown artificial intelligence system following recent U.S. restrictions on foreign access to American AI technologies. The move, implemented by the White House last week, effectively cut off British companies and government entities from leading U.S.-based AI platforms, prompting a surge of interest in Cosine’s efforts to create a sovereign AI alternative.

Cosine plans to launch the initial version of its AI system, named Lumen Sovereign, by July—significantly earlier than the originally scheduled November release. The company is partnering with prominent British firms including BT, the defense contractor Babcock, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, and the London Stock Exchange. These organizations anticipate using Lumen Sovereign for applications such as security testing, anti-money laundering compliance, and other sensitive operations where reliance on foreign AI platforms is deemed risky.

Pullen, 27, and co-founder Yang Li began exploring AI technology in early 2022, inspired by an early experience with ChatGPT while working on a location tracking application. Early attempts to apply AI to automate software development faced technical challenges and intense competition from well-funded U.S. companies. However, Cosine found a niche in addressing concerns about data sovereignty and security by enabling clients to run AI models on local infrastructure rather than on overseas cloud servers commonly used by platforms like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

Despite gaining support from several major British companies and government departments, Pullen acknowledges significant obstacles remain. The UK’s high energy costs and lengthy grid connection delays present major challenges to training and operating AI models domestically, making data center infrastructure investments costly. “Compute is probably the biggest constraint that we have,” he said, emphasizing the technical and financial risks involved.

Cosine currently employs a team of 30 and has raised roughly $15 million (£11 million) to date. Pullen hopes that demonstrating the viability of a British AI system will attract substantially more investment as the project progresses. He described engagement with government agencies as demanding but vital to the company’s goals.

Facing off against some of the best-funded AI enterprises based in the United States, Cosine’s leadership is determined to establish a competitive British presence in the AI sector. “A lot of the value seems to go to the US,” Pullen said. “I want to take this all the way. I think we could be a British Anthropic. Why not?”