NEWS
Locai Labs, the UK’ s sovereign
AI company, and Civo, a British sovereign cloud provider, have reached a Memorandum of Understanding to launch Project Mercury – a programme to build the UK’ s first pre-trained, sovereign large language models.
For years, the UK has operated as a digital tenant, reliant on foreign hyperscalers and AI developers for critical compute. Mercury aims to end this dependence, proving Britain has the talent, infrastructure and vision to build, train and host frontier AI domestically.
By providing a domestic alternative, Mercury reduces geopolitical risk and keeps UK data under UK jurisdiction. The Mercury Series will deliver a family of LLMs meeting strict security, residency and compliance needs across public and private sectors.
Locai Labs and Civo unveil Project Mercury – the UK’ s first family of sovereign frontier models
edge models from 0.8 – 30 billion parameters and frontier systems up to 256 billion parameters.
Developed with renewable energy, Mercury supports sustainable AI. Backed by the UK’ s £ 500 million Sovereign AI Fund, it advances the goal of becoming an AI maker.
Leaders from both companies said the partnership creates a trusted, homegrown ecosystem delivering security, performance and national resilience. This initiative underscores collaboration, innovation and long-term capability building for UK industry and public services.
Use cases span public service digitisation and competitive advantage in finance, healthcare and engineering.
Models will run on Civo’ s UK sovereign cloud or on-premise. The series includes
AC Milan and Corpay Cross-Border extend their partnership
AC Milan and Corpay, a global leader in corporate payments, have announced that Corpay’ s Cross-Border business has entered into a long-term agreement to extend their successful and exclusive collaboration as Official Commercial Foreign Exchange Partner of the club.
The collaboration brings together two organisations driven by a strong focus on innovation and an international outlook.
AC Milan connects over 500 million fans worldwide, continuously evolving while staying true to its heritage to strengthen engagement with current and future supporters.
Corpay supports organisations through innovative solutions, helping them overcome borders, manage foreign exchange exposure and execute cross-border payments with accuracy and security.
“ We are delighted to continue our journey alongside Corpay, renewing a partnership that reflects our shared goal of strengthening connections with a global audience, building meaningful relationships and continuing to evolve with a forward-looking vision,” said Maikel Oettle, Chief Revenue Officer, AC Milan.
“ Over the past three seasons, we’ ve had the privilege of serving as the Official Commercial FX Partner of the Rossoneri,” said Brad Loder, Chief Marketing Officer, Corpay Cross-Border Solutions.
“ We’ re proud of the trust the club’ s teams have placed in us and delighted to extend this relationship for multiple years with one of the most successful clubs in the sport’ s history.”
This extended agreement reinforces both organisations’ commitment to international growth, Digital Transformation and long-term collaboration, ensuring that AC Milan continues to benefit from tailored foreign exchange expertise while Corpay strengthens its presence within global sport partnerships. www. intelligentcio. com
INTELLIGENT CIO EUROPE
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