The UK organisation for the business of Open Technology

Making the UK the Home of Open Source 

Released on 5 March 2026

OpenUK has today shared the headlines of its proposal for open source, made to UK Research and Innovation. These were commissioned last year by UKRI and have set the basis for making the UK the home of open source AI as well as building our national open source sustainable infrastructure. 

Split into recommendations for the UK as a funder of sustainable innovation and as a user of this, the recommendations have central tenants that include building a National Foundation for the UK’s open source as the home to its open source innovation. This would be the basis for growth in partnership with an incubator /accelerator and bring expertise from the UK’s leading open source community. 

Not only is the UK Europe’s number one in open source software by lines of code and number of contributors but it’s also number one when it comes to open source in AI. This position is further extended by a disproportionate number of open source leaders living and working from the UK. This offers an unprecedented opportunity for the UK to bring that leadership to the fore to build a foundation as the home for open source envisioned in recent weeks by our AI Minister. 

As we move into our second phase of work on this, OpenUK will be consulting industry leaders and experts in the UK and across the globe for views on the foundation in the coming weeks.

Paper Includes:

• Building a firm “foundation” for the UK as home of open source AI, Professor Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK
• OpenUK’s full recommendations to UKRI as (1) a funder of innovation and (2) a user of innovation
• The National Foundation concept — what it would hold, how it would be funded, how it self-funds over time
• AI sovereignty and the “middle nations”; learning from the US Linux Foundation and China’s Open Atom Foundation
• Policy capture and open washing — why expertise matters in the open source policy conversation

Download the report

Executive Summary

One year ago, OpenUK brought its collective industry expertise to UKRI, commissioned to look at how the UK could build sustainable digital infrastructure, enhance the country’s leadership in digital and AI, and build capacity from the UK. This paper shares those recommendations publicly for the first time.

The UK’s opportunity

• The UK is Europe’s number one in open source software by lines of code and contributors, and number one for open source in AI, with a disproportionate share of global open source leaders living and working here
• Open source is the “submarine under the digital economy” — powering it while remaining unrecognised in UK policy decisions
• MCP, a critical part of today’s agentic AI infrastructure, was created by two engineers in London — yet is housed in a US foundation

The central recommendation: a National Foundation

• Build an open source “National Foundation” for the UK: hosting and maintaining publicly funded projects, providing good governance and a software steward to meet regulatory requirements, training, community engagement, events, and management of the UK’s contribution to and fund for open source
• Pair it with an open source incubator/accelerator to monetise and scale UK open source businesses, self-funding the Foundation over time
• Learn from the Linux Foundation (US) and China’s Open Atom Foundation: a home for UK projects that keeps IP local while enabling global collaboration

As a funder of innovation

• Ringfence 20% of innovation investment for maintenance and the ecosystem
• Utilise UK insurance markets to build insurance products for open source and AI; support a new corporate structure for UK-based foundations; tax breaks for enterprises investing in collaborative innovation; FCA-approved open source endowment funding mechanisms

As a user of innovation

• Don’t build a central OSPO — build skills centrally and across the public sector, with a centralised public-sector portfolio/repository held with the Foundation
• Shift procurement practices and skills to enable procurement of open source and its maintenance; fund global open source at scale beyond existing sovereign funds

Sovereignty and the middle nations

• Three tiers of AI nations: the US and China building frontier models; ~10 “middle nations” including the UK able to invest in AI systems; and those who can only buy services
• Middle nations seek sovereignty in their infrastructure stacks — open source is the cornerstone, and collaboration (starting with the Commonwealth) is critical

Next steps

• OpenUK is seeking public-sector buy-in across departments and consulting UK and global industry leaders and experts on the Foundation in the coming weeks — a blueprint not just for the UK but for other nation states

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