Fractile, the Bristol and London startup developing advanced chips to run artificial intelligence, has secured backing from the UK Government's Sovereign AI Venture Fund and the British Business Bank as part of a funding round worth more than £500 million. The investment was announced on Wednesday 11 November 2026, and the government says it will support highly skilled jobs and industrial renewal in the UK. The funding round values Fractile at more than £5 billion. As well as Sovereign AI and the British Business Bank, the Series C round is backed by investors including CapitalG, Lightspeed and Redpoint. Fractile is reinventing the hardware that AI runs on, aiming to make it faster, more energy efficient and less costly, by looking at the full stack of technologies AI rests on, from chips to software and machine learning research. ## What the funding means for jobs The government says the investment will help keep the jobs, expertise and economic value created by British AI breakthroughs in Britain. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Fractile has plans to expand its presence in Bristol, and that the fundraising will boost the UK's ability to make the chips and cutting-edge technology powering AI at home. No individual roles were listed in the announcement, so jobseekers should watch Fractile's own careers channels as the expansion takes shape. AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said the government was determined to change a pattern in which Britain produces world-class scientific ideas only to see the technology, industry and wealth they create built elsewhere. He said that if AI is going to serve the British people, strengthen public services and create good jobs across the country, Britain needs to build more of the technology that powers it. ## Why the government is backing Fractile Through Sovereign AI, the government is backing British chip designers, advanced hardware companies and AI entrepreneurs, with the aim of anchoring critical capabilities on home soil, safeguarding critical infrastructure and keeping British data secure. The British Business Bank, the UK's economic development bank, will help the company access the long-term capital needed to scale its breakthrough AI hardware technology in the UK. The announcement comes a fortnight after the Budget, in which the Chancellor confirmed a further £140 million backing for Sovereign AI, with an additional £60 million to support the Fund's investments and £80 million for its research and development procurement scheme. The Chancellor also expanded the British Business Bank's investment capacity by £5 billion to £30.6 billion. The government says the Budget package will back growing businesses across every part of the UK and is expected to support more than 24,600 existing jobs and create more than 15,800 new jobs over the lifetime of the finance. ## What happens next Fractile's backers say its approach brings together deep expertise across chip design, software and machine learning, with the potential to compete with the very best globally. Sovereign AI Investment Partner Josephine Kant said Walter and the team at Fractile were taking on an ambitious challenge with the potential to make a significant contribution to the global future of AI hardware. Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer of the British Business Bank, said the team was building chips designed to work faster and at greater capacity, allowing AI to reach new potential more cost effectively. The government also says it is pushing ahead with plans to build and deploy the compute infrastructure the UK needs for the AI era, with up to £2 billion of investment over the coming years under the AI Compute Roadmap.