- UK Government furthers OpenAI partnership as part of its AI Action Plan
- The move brings data sovereignty to UK users for customer content
- Civil servants in the MoJ will also get access to ChatGPT for enterprise
The UK Government has announced an agreement with OpenAI to expand the UK’s sovereign AI capability, providing more data security and safety for users.
From October 24 2025 onwards, British customers and developers will have the option to store their data within UK servers, which will help meet data protection laws - including GDPR, a much stricter set of requirements than its US counterparts.
This will be a welcome announcement for many UK businesses, many of which don’t know where their data is stored. The lack of data sovereignty has been a cause of growing concern, with many worried about the potential ramifications of their data being stored in the US.
Stored in-region
The new ChatGPT workspace, provisioned with data residency, is set to store customer content in the chosen region at rest. This includes files, image generation, conversations, code interpreter and data analysis, canvas, ChatGPT Memory, and custom GPTs.
This still leaves some information which may be stored outside of the selected area, including, but not limited to; workspace metadata, third-party services, connectors and MCP, and transient or processing steps (needed for service functionality).
Part of the government’s AI Action plan, this latest agreement also brings ChatGPT to civil servants in the Ministry of Justice, providing 2,500 employees with ChatGPT Enterprise.
“The number of people using our products in the UK has increased fourfold in the past year,” noted Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO.
“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.”
The government has already laid out extensive plans to inject AI into the UK public sector, which paired with £14 billion in private sector investment, aims to bring the country to the top of the global AI market for both consumers and businesses.
