Hidden in Plain Sight: How Governments Can Unlock the Next Wave of Open Source AI Innovation
Our new report, published in partnership with Mozilla, argues that open source AI has moved from a backwater of hobbyist tinkering to geostrategically critical infrastructure — and that European governments urgently need to catch up. The report sets out seven policy reforms to unlock the UK’s open source AI ecosystem.
These policy recommendations, include: adopting an ‘open source first’ policy for government AI infrastructure; requiring publicly funded AI projects to release open models, datasets, and code; creating regulatory fast-tracks for open source AI providers; reforming procurement to recognise open source companies; sharpening Innovate UK’s existing AI investment priorities to include an explicit focus on open source and foundational software capabilities; and investing in the deployment tooling that turns model capability into real-world value.
The report draws on interviews with founders, VCs, and ecosystem leaders to make the case that open source AI is not a niche concern for developers — it is a foundational ingredient for startup competition, sovereign software capability, and innovation on par with access to talent, data, and capital.
For roughly twenty years, governments saw open source AI as a marginal scene: small communities of eccentric founders tinkering with models that had limited real-world application, but the moment now requires a different approach. The technology and the geopolitical scene have changed dramatically.
Advances in AI capability, the intensification of US–China tech competition, and Europe’s growing need for autonomy in critical software have placed this ecosystem in an entirely different light. The talent density around open source AI has surged because the space is now strategically relevant. What was once dismissed as hobbyist tinkering can now provide geostrategically critical capabilities.