Ministry of Justice’s OpenAI deal paves way to sovereign AI

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with OpenAI to provide civil servants with access to ChatGPT Enterprise. The MoU includes the option of UK data residency for customers using the OpenAI API Platform, ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu. 

OpenAI technology is being used across the UK government to provide artificial intelligence (AI) in several tools, including the Whitehall AI assistant, Humphrey, which has been designed to ease the administrative burden on civil servants.

OpenAI is also behind the government’s Consult tool, which supports the policymaking process by automatically sorting public consultation responses, a task that typically takes officials weeks but can now be completed in minutes, while leaving important decisions to experts.

The agreement supports the MoJ’s AI action plan for justice, and will provide 2,500 employees with access to ChatGPT Enterprise. It follows a successful pilot that showed time-saving benefits across a range of routine tasks including writing support, compliance and legal work, data and research processes, and document analysis.

Given the current geopolitical climate, IT leaders in both the public and private sector are rethinking how they go about maintaining digital sovereignty. This has resulted in the adoption of geographically isolated availability zones from the hyperscale cloud providers.

However, given these businesses are predominantly US-headquartered, there is a risk that under the US Cloud Act, lawmakers have a legal route to access data held outside of the US. A bigger potential risk is if a foreign government prevents access to the services provided by a US-headquartered software provider. As a consequence, there are plans in Europe to develop sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure.

Commenting on the MoU, deputy prime minister David Lammy said: “Our partnership with OpenAI places Britain firmly in the driving seat of the global tech revolution – leading the world in innovation and using technology to deliver fairness and opportunity for every corner of the United Kingdom.”

OpenAI said the MoU agreement with the UK government includes a focus on expanding the UK’s sovereign AI capability.

Following the Stargate UK AI infrastructure partnership with Nvidia and Nscale, which was signed in September 2025 to coincide with US president Donald Trump’s state visit, OpenAI is now introducing UK data residency, which it said would give British customers and developers the option to store their data in the UK to help meet local data protection preferences or requirements. The Ministry of Justice will be the first to benefit from this offer as part of the MoU agreement.

UK-headquartered startup Nscale is one of the companies with strong links to the UK government’s AI expansion plans. Last month, it announced it had partnered with Microsoft to deliver the UK’s largest AI supercomputer at Nscale’s AI Campus in Loughton. Due to go live in 2027, the site will initially house 23,040 Nvidia GB300 graphics processing units (GPUs) for Microsoft UK’s Azure public cloud service. 

The Open AI Stargate UK initiative also uses Nscale infrastructure, which will be set to go live in Q1 2026. This has the potential to scale to 31,000 Nvidia GPUs over time. 

“The number of people using our products in the UK has increased fourfold in the past year,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “It’s exciting to see them using AI to save time, increase productivity and get more done. Civil servants are using ChatGPT to improve public services and established firms are reimagining operations. We’re proud to continue supporting the UK and the government’s AI plan.”