Tech giant Meta is backing the UK government’s latest push into artificial intelligence with a $1 million (€854,000) grant to support the development of new AI technologies for public sector use. The funding will launch the “Open-Source AI Fellowship,” a one-year initiative aimed at equipping government departments with advanced AI tools to streamline operations and bolster national security.
Announced by Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, the fellowship will support 10 engineers who will be embedded within the UK government beginning January 2026. Their mission: to develop open-source AI solutions for high-security and high-impact use cases across the public sector.
“This Fellowship is the best of AI in action – open, practical, and built for public good,” Kyle said. “It’s about delivery, not just ideas – creating real tools that help government work better for people.”
Among the potential applications of the fellowship are tools to speed up housing approvals using construction data, improve language translation for national security, and automate document summaries for civil servants. Fellows may also contribute to “Humphrey,” an AI-powered suite currently under development to assist public officials in drafting responses, summarising reports, and managing workload efficiently.
The initiative will be managed by the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national centre for data science and AI. Meta’s grant will directly support the fellowship through the Institute, which will place the selected engineers in appropriate departments to co-develop AI tools using Meta’s Llama 3.5 model and other open-source technologies.
All tools developed through the programme will be publicly accessible, reinforcing the government’s commitment to transparency and collaborative innovation.
The fellowship builds on ongoing AI pilots in government, including “Caddy,” an open-source AI assistant already in use at Citizens Advice centres. Caddy helps staff answer frequently asked questions on topics such as debt management, legal aid, and consumer rights.
The announcement follows another major tech partnership unveiled this week. The UK government signed an agreement with Google Cloud to train 100,000 civil servants in AI and digital skills by 2030. The programme aims to ensure that at least one in every 10 government officials is a tech specialist.
Together, the fellowship and upskilling initiatives reflect a broader strategy by the UK government to position itself as a leader in AI innovation and digital governance, while enhancing efficiency and responsiveness in the public sector.
