Cardiff start-up Aventail wins Welsh Government backing to keep business data under control in the AI era

Based at Tramshed Tech in Cardiff, the company is building technology that sits between businesses and AI systems so organisations can use models from different providers and choose whether tasks run on their own devices or through external services. Chief executive Joseph Ward said: "AI is going to become fundamental to how organisations operate, but businesses shouldn't have to give up control of their data in order to use it." The work addresses questions facing businesses adopting generative AI, including where confidential data is processed and who controls the infrastructure.

On the detail released so far, Nation.Cymru is the only publisher on the record, the activity sits in South Wales.

No funding figure, timescale or headcount has been published alongside the announcement, so the scale of the work cannot yet be measured from the reporting itself.

The account is carried by Nation.Cymru, which has not named the delivery partners, suppliers or funders involved.

“We're building the security layer that allows organisations to use the best AI technology available while maintaining control over how their information is accessed, processed and governed. “There is a much bigger conversation emerging around AI sovereignty and the infrastructure countries need to participate in the AI economy on their own terms. It's exciting to be building that technology here in Wales, and the Welsh Government's support will help us accelerate that work.”

For South Wales the substance of the SMART Flexible Innovation Support programme sits in policy and delivery, where a Welsh strategy only changes anything once budget, staff and procurement rules are attached to it, and that attachment is where most of them stall.

No figure has been disclosed alongside the SMART Flexible Innovation Support programme, so the measure that counts in South Wales is recorded activity: policy and delivery showing up in hiring, contracts or published outcomes rather than in further announcements.

Because the SMART Flexible Innovation Support programme is anchored in South Wales, the open question is replication. One strong location does not close a national gap in policy and delivery on its own.

Within startups, the SMART Flexible Innovation Support programme should be read against what the rest of the UK already has in place, because Welsh organisations compete for the same funding, the same suppliers and the same shortage of experienced AI staff.