Atos has announced plans to launch three UK centres to deliver sovereign IT and sovereign AI services, aiming to meet rising demand for UK-based delivery, data hosting and resilience.
According to the company, the suite of three UK centres are designed to give organisations a tailored, resilient approach that adapts to evolving regulations, geopolitical pressures and specific operational needs. The hubs are targeted at the public sector, defence and critical national infrastructure.
Plans for the three hubs
The plan announced by Atos covers an orchestration hub, an agentic AI centre and a digital enablement centre focused on faster, compliant ICT delivery.
Sovereign Orchestration Hub – This will be a delivery centre providing sovereign cloud-on-site solutions, AI-assisted digital workplace services, extended device lifecycle services, a ‘Sovereign Bridge’, and a converged network and security operations function. The intent is unified monitoring and management across IT and OT to support proactive issue resolution and improve efficiency, security and resilience.
Digital Agentic Centre – This will be a facility to host and manage sovereign AI capabilities. Atos says it will ‘revolutionise”’application services and pursue automation of more than 50% across engineering, testing and DevOps, with the goal of cutting costs and time-to-value and standardising application portfolios to client needs.
Sovereign Digital Enablement Centre – This will be an environment to accelerate secure build, test and assurance for defence and CNI use cases. Supported by partners Microsoft and AWS, the centre will operate as a collaborative sandbox for SMEs, academia and larger industry to trial and prove technologies at speed.
Plans to boost hiring, skills development in the UK
Alongside the hubs, Atos plans to increase graduate and apprentice hiring, offering what it describes as ‘AI-proofed career paths’ with flexible options such as term-time contracts. New recruits will gain hands-on rotations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity, data analytics and digital services, with the first cohort of around 50 early-career employees due to join the centres in 2026.
Michael Herron, Head of Atos UK&I, commented, “Our new sovereign offerings will ensure our clients have a future-ready end-to-end IT estate under their control so that they can easily adapt to any regulatory or geopolitical changes. For businesses in the public, defence and critical national infrastructure sectors, the need for sovereign AI capabilities is mission-critical, and we’re proud to be working with them to make safe and reliable digital and AI development possible.
“As part of this, we are reimagining what an IT career pathway looks like in an age where humans and AI co-exist together. Our new early-career roles will give young people in the UK a multi-faceted career in the digital arena. Sovereignty, for us, includes nurturing the next generation of tech talent in the UK&I.”
