France’s Atos eyes UK public sector with investment in secure UK infrastructure

Atos has built additional UK delivery infrastructure, with a series of investments aimed to reassure customers their data is stored and processed using military-grade security.

The establishment of UK-based infrastructure, which houses artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, will support the company’s plan to grow its UK public sector business.

Recently installed Atos UK chief executive Michael Herron, who joined Atos from CGI, knows the public sector well as a former civil servant. He worked at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) before being transferred to its IT supplier, ICL, where he spent 14 years working on government contracts.

“There’s plenty of opportunity in government,” Herron told Computer Weekly. “While we’re not seeing massive growth out there in the market, there is growth and plenty to go after.”

According to figures from Tussell, Atos currently has 37 live contracts in the UK public sector worth £1.3bn, through contracts with the MoD, HMRC, the Home Office, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), as well as the state-owned National Savings and Investment bank (NSIB). Since 2012, it has won a total of 401 contracts, with a combined total of £12bn.

The NSIB contract is Atos’s biggest in the UK public sector, with £475m over three years, where it provides IT outsourcing services. It recently won a major deal with Defra for digital workplace services. It provides testing services to HMRC and application development, and support to the Home Office.

Herron said the public sector push is part of the reason the company has launched UK-based infrastructure, which meets the highest levels of security and government accreditation.

The three “sovereign” centres, as Atos describes them, are an orchestration hub, and digital agentic and digital enablement centres.

This is in addition to existing UK infrastructure, which includes a List X facility in Andover, accredited by UK government to the highest security levels.

Herron said the centres are on UK soil, accredited to UK regulations and standards, and serviced by UK security-cleared staff. He said the combination goes beyond just building centres in the UK to reassure customers. “It’s different to when people say onshore [centres],” said Herron.

He also believes his experience is ideal as Atos pushes for more government business. “I became the CEO at the right time, because [between the] 14 years or so that I’ve spent in defence and today, there is increasing geopolitical uncertainty,” he said. “There’s lots of talk about data sovereignty; there’s a cyber attack every other day, and I feel we can develop the right capability.”

According to Herron, the rapid take-up of artificial intelligence (AI) means “sovereign AI capabilities are mission-critical” for businesses in the public, defence and critical national infrastructure sectors.

Atos is not alone targeting the UK public sector. Companies like India’s Tata Consultancy Services are increasing their work in the UK public sector. Speaking to Computer Weekly about TCS’s UK public sector plans last year, Amit Kapur, its UK country head, said there was “potential, paucity and action” with “good engagement”.

Similarly, fellow India-headquartered Infosys recently won a £1.2bn deal with the NHS, which increased its UK government work 160 times over. According to Tussell, before the latest NHS deal, Infosys had only won 36 contracts since 2012, with a total value of £87.2m.