Baringa partners with Cosine to help shape Lumen Sovereign, the UK’s first sovereign AI model

Baringa is partnering with Cosine, the AI lab building Lumen Sovereign – the UK’s first sovereign frontier AI model – to help develop artificial intelligence technology for the country’s critical infrastructure and other highly regulated environments.

Baringa will help test and enhance Cosine’s model, drawing on its deep experience in the energy sector and across critical national infrastructure, government and regulated financial services. Its work will help shape how Lumen Sovereign performs in environments where enhanced security, privacy, strict governance and niche legacy systems are the norm, not the exception.

Alistair Pullen, CEO of Cosine said: “Critical infrastructure needs AI capability that reflects the realistic conditions in which the work happens. That means complex systems, long-lived assets, high-consequence decisions, strict governance and no room for unexplained dependencies. Baringa brings deep energy-sector knowledge and practical experience turning AI and digital systems into operational outcomes. Its contribution will help us shape Lumen Sovereign around the requirements of the organisations that keep the UK energy system running.”

Edward Sharkey, Partner and Global Head of AI & Solutions, Baringa, said: “We are delighted to announce our partnership with Cosine. Generative AI offers our clients a step change in productivity, but for many, the real question is not what the technology is capable of, it is the boundaries within which their most sensitive data must remain. Together with Cosine, we help clients unlock the value of Generative AI without compromising on control, security or sovereignty of their critical data.”

Lumen Sovereign is backed by the UK Government’s £500 million Sovereign AI programme and is being trained on Isambard-AI, one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers, with deployment targeted by the end of 2026. Cosine has already assembled a coalition of major UK institutions – including BT, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group, LSEG, BAE Systems and Thales UK – to help shape the model’s design, a group so far weighted towards finance, defence and telecoms. Baringa’s role brings deep energy-sector expertise to the project.

Baringa has long experience in artificial intelligence, and this partnership is the latest in a long line of AI projects it has undertaken with clients and partners around the world.