Eight months after signing a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the UK government had not run a single formal trial under the agreement. A Freedom of Information request submitted by Valliance to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology produced a stark response. DSIT held no records of any such trials. The July 2025 deal was framed as a major step towards deploying advanced AI across public services, but the FOI findings pointed to a significant implementation gap.
DSIT cited a Ministry of Justice initiative, running since October 2025, that allows civil servants to use ChatGPT with UK-based data storage, and referenced parallel work with the UK AI Safety Institute, Nvidia, and Nscale on infrastructure and model safety.
Critics argued these fell short of the original commitment. Valliance co-founder Tarek Nseir said the gap between ambition and delivery risked eroding public confidence and slowing wider business adoption. "The future of the country depends on our ability to take the lead in implementing and extracting value from the technology," he said.
Progress under other AI deals struck by the government, including those with Google DeepMind and Anthropic, appeared similarly uneven, and plans for a major Nvidia supercomputer were reported to be behind schedule.
