Alan Turing Institute proposes a from-scratch open-source UK base model, mocked for a 2045 timeline
birchlse · x · 2026-10-20
According to a UK government advisory letter, the Alan Turing Institute has proposed training an open-source British AI base model from scratch and releasing it as a public good: UK-governed national infrastructure for researchers, startups and public services rather than a proprietary product. Top science advisers want ministers to consider the proposal and allocate national compute, warning the UK risks becoming a 'high-value AI customer' rather than a country that shapes the technology.
A viral quote-post mocked the plan: work starts as soon as 2028, availability by 2045, and to limit costs all towns north of Birmingham have been deleted from the training data.
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