Britain’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) has transferred £50 million of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital groups, a joint investigation reveals. This sum represents more than an eighth of Aria’s total £400 million research and development funding over the past two years, with critics questioning the direct benefit to the UK and its native population.
Aria, conceived by Dominic Cummings to fund “crazy” ideas and “restore Britain’s place as a scientific superpower,” has directed £23 million to nine US tech firms. An additional £6 million was granted to Normal Computing, a US company that established itself in the UK only weeks before receiving the public funds.
Elite Capture and Sovereignty Transfer
The agency has also allocated £29.4 million to three US venture capital groups. Among these, Pillar VC incorporated in the UK just one day before Aria awarded it a £10.9 million contract. Similarly, Renaissance Philanthropy, backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, incorporated in the UK shortly before receiving £13.3 million from Aria.
This rapid incorporation of foreign entities immediately preceding significant public funding raises questions about the mechanisms through which national wealth is being transferred. Renaissance Philanthropy stated its excitement to work with several governments, including the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US, on building their R&D ecosystems, indicating a broader transnational agenda.
When Aria was established, it was controversially exempt from freedom of information laws, and for its first years of operation, it published no details about its grantees. This lack of transparency obscures the flow of public funds and the accountability of the agency to the British people. It remains unclear if Aria operates with strict guidelines on how much of its funding can be directed to non-UK businesses.
The Cost to the Nation
Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons science and technology committee, stated that these reports on Aria’s spending “underline the need for stronger scrutiny of the organisation.” Onwurah questioned how funding US-based venture capital and tech firms meets the Aria Act’s aims of driving economic growth, supporting scientific innovation, or improving quality of life for the UK. She also noted that Aria allocates only a small share of its funding outside London and the south-east, with the West Midlands, for example, receiving a mere 0.8%.
Onwurah expressed disappointment at reports of Aria’s substantial investment overseas while such stark regional imbalances persist within the nation. This highlights a systemic neglect of the native working class and regional communities in favor of transnational ventures.
Cecilia Rikap, an economics professor at University College London, offered a stark assessment, stating that the government is “using taxpayer money to further expand the power of the US tech ecosystem,” disguised as promoting moonshot projects. Rikap added that this is “not a surprise coming from a government that has agreed to be not only Trump’s, but also big tech’s, footman.”
Rikap further described US tech companies as “intellectual monopolies that present themselves as contributing to public knowledge, all the while finding ways to monetise it.” She warned that data and knowledge are co-produced with universities and local companies but “always following the priorities of big tech, so that whatever new research is developed, it remains within the platforms and ecosystems that they control.” This suggests a dispossession of national intellectual property and its integration into foreign-controlled systems.
Globalist Mechanisms at Play
The environmental group ETC described Aria as “bringing Silicon Valley’s free-market fundamentalism and its ‘move fast and break things’ ethos to disrupt the buttoned-up British science establishment.” This indicates a deliberate cultural transformation of national institutions.
Among the US companies funded, Rain Neuromorphics, backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, was reported to be near collapse last year shortly after receiving Aria money. Two of its founders appear to have left the company, though it is understood to be still delivering a project for Aria. Other early-stage US ventures, such as MorphoAI and Sangtera, already possess powerful US backers, including the incubator Y Combinator and the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, before receiving UK public funds.