Britain launches its own rival to ChatGPT with home-grown AI breakthrough
A British technology company has launched what it describes as the UK’s first serious rival to ChatGPT, marking a significant moment for the country’s ambitions in artificial intelligence.
Locai Labs has unveiled Locai, a general AI assistant powered by Locai L1-Large, the UK’s first foundational large language model. Designed and built in Britain, the system aims to challenge AI dominance from the United States and China while offering a more sustainable and decentralised alternative.
The launch is backed by former science minister Lord Drayson, and led by founders James and George Drayson. Together, they argue the UK can compete in AI not by building ever larger data centres, but by rethinking how advanced models are trained and scaled.
- British-built foundational AI — Locai L1-Large is designed, developed and trained in the UK, supporting national tech sovereignty.
- Self-learning “Forget-Me-Not” technology — Patent-pending innovation that lets the model continuously improve without human retraining or large external datasets.
- Industry-leading conversational performance — Ranked top on conversational ability and human preference benchmarks, outperforming GPT-5, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek.
- Sustainable, decentralised scalability — Growth through a community-powered blockchain network that reduces reliance on large data centres.
- Culturally inclusive and open-source — Proficient in 200+ languages including Welsh, Scots Gaelic and more, with an open development ethos.
A self-learning British AI
At the heart of Locai is a new patent-pending approach called “Forget-Me-Not”, developed by George Drayson. One of the biggest challenges in AI development is “catastrophic forgetting”, where models lose earlier knowledge as they learn new information. Forget-Me-Not tackles this by allowing the model to generate its own synthetic training data, enabling it to improve continuously without human retraining or massive new datasets.
According to Locai Labs, this approach reduces costs, speeds up progress, and improves safety and reliability. In independent benchmark testing, Locai L1-Large ranked number one on Arena Hard v2, an industry benchmark measuring conversational ability and human preference, outperforming models including GPT-5, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek. It also delivered competitive results in mathematics, scientific reasoning and instruction following.
Tackling Britain’s data centre challenge
The launch also addresses a long-standing UK weakness. Unlike the US and China, Britain lacks vast domestic data centre capacity. Traditional AI models rely on energy-intensive infrastructure, raising both cost and environmental concerns.
Locai Labs is taking a different route. As usage grows, the system will scale through a community-powered blockchain network, allowing users to contribute computing resources directly. This decentralised model is designed to reduce reliance on large data centres while creating a uniquely British, sustainable AI ecosystem.
A strategic step for the UK
Locai is trained in the UK using computers powered by 100 percent renewable energy and is open source. It supports more than 200 languages, including Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, reflecting a focus on cultural alignment as well as performance.
For Britain, the launch represents more than a new chatbot. It signals a move towards AI sovereignty, keeping advanced capability, talent and intellectual property on home soil. In a global race where AI is increasingly seen as strategic infrastructure, Locai positions the UK as an active creator of world-class technology, not just a consumer of it.
Locai is available now in early access at locai.chat, offering a first look at a British-built alternative in one of the world’s fastest-growing technology sectors.
Our Verdict
I’ve given Locai.chat a few challenges to see how it stacks up against ChatGPT and in the brief time I’ve had with it – I’m impressed. Answers are fast (noticeably faster than chatGPT ) and the questions I asked, and the tasks I set it were performed very well with no ‘hallucinations’.
The interface is very familiar and you can even customise the chatbot avatar.
We’ll give it a more in depth test over the coming weeks but so far it’s all positive. It great to know (in this uncertain world) that we now have our own homegrown AI system in the UK. We’ll write up a full review in the coming weeks – but you can try it for yourself at locai.chat (there is a waitlist to join – but it doesn’t take long to get access)
