Key facts
- Starling Bank is developing a transactional foundation model using NVIDIA chips and Civo's UK sovereign cloud.
- The model will be trained on over 15 billion anonymized transactions from Starling.
- The initiative aims to enhance AI capabilities and data sovereignty, reducing reliance on global tech providers.
- The project aligns with the UK Government's Financial Services AI Adoption Plan, co-authored by Starling's CIO.
- Starling expects to deploy the model in early 2027, initially for fraud detection and its AI financial assistant.
Starling Bank is partnering with NVIDIA and UK cloud provider Civo to develop a transactional foundation model, aiming to bolster its artificial intelligence capabilities while reducing dependence on global technology providers. The model will be trained and hosted on Civo's UK sovereign cloud infrastructure, utilizing over 15 billion anonymized transactions from Starling. This initiative aligns with the UK Government's Financial Services AI Adoption Plan, which warns against the risks of concentrating AI development with a few global providers. NVIDIA will provide technical support using its GPUs and AI libraries, while Civo offers secure, resilient, sovereign infrastructure. Starling expects to deploy the model in early 2027, initially to enhance fraud detection and its AI financial assistant, Starling Assistant. The bank stated it is the first lender to train such a model on UK-owned and operated infrastructure, keeping data under UK jurisdiction. The move comes as Starling Bank reported a 6% fall in revenue and a 3% slip in pre-tax profit for the year ending March 2026, and announced plans to cut 130 jobs while continuing to invest in technology and AI.