Is 'Tech-xit' Imminent? UK Steps Up Sovereignty Push Amid AI Strife

The UK is intensifying its push for tech sovereignty, driven by concerns over reliance on US tech companies, particularly in the rapidly developing field of AI. Recent restrictions on AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI have fueled this movement, with the UK government seeking to build a ‘Cyber Shield’ – a sovereign defense system leveraging AI to identify and mitigate cyber risks.

Last month, Anthropic revealed that the Trump administration issued an export control order banning foreign nationals from accessing the AI company’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The ban, which was widely criticized by the cybersecurity community, forced Anthropic to indefinitely suspend access to the models while it tried to make sense of the government’s national security concerns (details about an alleged jailbreaking flaw were not disclosed, and the US Department of Commerce never commented publicly on the ban).

While the US government eventually lifted the export control order (again, with no public explanation), the restrictions on Anthropic upset more than just infosec professionals. The move sparked concerns within the UK government about the nation's dependence on US technology companies. The UK’s House of Commons, for example, described the situation in blunt terms. In a paper titled “Science diplomacy: Sovereignty, strategy, and the global race,” published last week, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee warned that “the whim of a foreign government” could cut off the country's access to key technologies such as AI.

“The US's move to restrict Anthropic's latest AI models should be a powerful reminder that the UK may not be able to count on even its allies for access to vital technology,” the paper stated, noting the Trump administration also restricted access to OpenAI’s latest models to a small number of hand-picked companies.

The private sector has echoed those concerns. Raphael Auphan, chief operating officer of Swiss technology firm Proton, says access to cutting-edge AI is now a crucial part of the larger tech sovereignty question. “If [sovereignty] meant knowing where your data resided and whether it was accessible to the US government,” Turner says, citing the Microsoft data center case in Ireland and CLOUD Act, “this now refers to the continent having its own technology, residing in its own cloud and thus having its data beyond the reach of Washington (or Beijing).”

UK to Build “Sovereign” Cyber Shield

Also last week, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) detailed its “Cyber Shield” strategy, which aims to build a full-scale, sovereign defense approach that uses “frontier AI to identify, reduce and resolve our national cyber risk.” In a blog post, the NCSC emphasized that AI is accelerating attacks from cybercriminals and nation-state actors that were already increasing in scale and sophistication before large language models (LLMs) entered the equation. As a result, the UK government needs to fight fire with fire by constructing an agentic AI defense that can match the speed of the latest threats.

That may be easier said than done, however. In a recent risk report last month, Proton noted that more than two-thirds of businesses in the UK, Spain, and France run primarily on US tech companies and urged organizations to reduce their reliance on those companies. The NCSC blog post acknowledged the significant challenges facing Cyber Shield, noting that the project will require “association or partnership with leading frontier AI capabilities, cyber defence organisations and academia.”

Louise Horton, head of UK government affairs at NCC Group, tells Dark Reading that Cyber Shield's success will depend on those partnerships rather than the UK government going it alone. “A sovereign cyber-defence capability is likely to be most effective if it leverages this wider ecosystem through trusted public-private collaboration rather than attempting to centralize capability entirely within the state,” she says. Horton adds that building a sovereign defense system will be tricky; it won't necessarily mean the UK can't choose tech companies outside of Europe, but the government will need to select the right vendors and providers that support the overall strategy.

Tech Sovereignty in the AI Era

Sovereignty has evolved greatly over the last decade-plus, shifting from a data-centric issue to a broader concept that encompasses virtually every aspect of the technology stack. “If [sovereignty] meant knowing where your data resided and whether it was accessible to the US government,” Turner says, citing the Microsoft data center case in Ireland and CLOUD Act, “this now refers to the continent having its own technology, residing in its own cloud and thus having its data beyond the reach of Washington (or Beijing).”

AI has complicated the tech sovereignty picture for the UK and other countries. First, Turner says, the market has narrower options. “Europe's choice when it comes to frontier models is almost entirely between US closed ones, from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, or Chinese open ones, from folks like DeepSeek and Alibaba,” he says. Of course, there are open source AI models, but those come with concerns as well, Turner notes. “If you're going for a European alternative, there is always Mistral AI, of course, but I'll leave you to determine quite how ‘frontier’ its models actually are.”

Second, Auphan says it also exposes a broader concern regarding Europe's reliance on foreign companies for critical AI infrastructure. In its “Top Cybersecurity Threats In 2026” report, Forrester noted that the options for such infrastructure are limited. “Only 30 countries host compute infrastructure capable of supporting advanced AI workloads, yet boards and C-suites are pushing procurement decisions on sovereign alternatives before security teams can evaluate what they are buying,” Forrester analysts wrote.

Still, Auphaun says tech sovereignty is achievable and urged European organizations to adopt products and services from local companies, especially where the alternatives often match the key features and benefits of US offerings. “In Proton's view, Europe has the expertise to achieve greater tech sovereignty; what is needed now is the confidence and political will to invest in its own digital future,” he says.

Sovereignty Versus Security The security risks of leaping without fully vetting them could add additional burdens to overworked security teams. Forrester's report noted that “boards chasing sovereignty without assessing accurately all risks involved end up making architectural commitments that land on security teams to execute.” Horton agrees and says the push for tech sovereignty should be based on questions of control, resilience, and assurance rather than “reducing complex security questions to simple geographic ownership tests,” warning that such a narrow interpretation could have unintended consequences.

“Across Europe, NCC Group has observed growing efforts to restrict market access through sovereignty requirements,” she says. “While these measures are often motivated by legitimate security concerns, overly protectionist approaches can reduce access to expertise, innovation, and trusted partners, potentially weakening resilience rather than strengthening it.”

But the UK’s — and Europe’s — move toward tech independence could have consequences in the US as well. While the financial impact on American vendors and providers might not be felt for some time, the upheaval has strained US-UK relations, making threat intel sharing unlikely to flourish. “Even the status of the Five Eyes looks a bit parlous at the moment,” Turner says.