UK BUSINESS AI UNIVERSE: Places: South East: Big tech in the UK

Owner or parent

IBM Research (IBM Research Europe)

Lab director or lead

Michael Bradley — UK Senior Research Manager, IBM Research (Hursley) — date not stated

Other leaders

Helen Stanton — Program Manager for Research; Dave Braines — Delivery lead for Safer Materials Advisor; Geeth de Mel — Manager and Senior Research Scientist; Anna Paola Carrieri — Manager and Senior Research Scientist

Site and address as published

"Based at Hursley"; Daresbury Lab (joint Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation with STFC)

Headcount

Not stated ("growing team")

What it does

IBM's UK research lab, based at Hursley, with a team at Daresbury working with STFC's Hartree Centre. Its teams build algorithms for AI and quantum applications in earth and space observation, healthcare and life sciences, materials and AI-accelerated science. In 2026 it released TokaMind, a foundation model of fusion plasma built with the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

Research groups or focus

"artificial intelligence, climate and life sciences, quantum computing, and hybrid cloud"; Bradley's teams: Earth and Space Observation, Healthcare and Life Sciences, AI-accelerated science; projects: physics extremes computing, simulation for accelerated discovery, Auto-omics

Notable outputs

TokaMind — fusion plasma foundation model (about 9 million parameters, about 40 signals from the MAST tokamak), with UKAEA and the Hartree Centre — 23 Apr 2026 (partnership already BIZ-CLD-6028); TokaMark — benchmark of 14 plasma-analysis tasks — 2026; flood-event detection from satellite data, co-developed with Hartree — blog of 31 Mar 2023; AI platform for inflammatory bowel disease drug development with Reprocell and Hartree — 2023. The UK lab page also lists TerraStackAI, an IBM–ESA open-source flood and wildfire model, an open-source ocean model and foundation models for materials; UK authorship of each is not stated.

Selected papers

TokaMind (full title not seen) — arXiv — Feb 2026 — https://arxiv.org/html/2602.15084v1 ; TokaMark (full title not seen) — arXiv — Feb 2026 — https://arxiv.org/html/2602.10132v2 (both links taken from IBM's blog; arXiv pages not opened)

Funding or budget as published

Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation, £210m over five years — 4 Jun 2021 — https://uk.newsroom.ibm.com/2021-06-04-UK-STFC-Hartree-Centre-and-IBM-Begin-Five-Year-210-Million-Partnership-to-Accelerate-Discovery-and-Innovation-with-AI-and-Quantum-Computing (already DEAL-BIG-001)

Partners named

STFC Hartree Centre — HNCDI, "our first Discovery Accelerator in Europe" — Jun 2021; UKAEA — TokaMind — Apr 2026; Reprocell — IBD drug-development platform — 2023; Unilever and Gexcon UK — HNCDI launch partners quoted — Jun 2021

Uk government links

HNCDI with STFC (UKRI), announced with Science Minister Amanda Solloway, Jun 2021; DSIT's Regulatory Innovation Office co-hosted an AI hackathon with IBM (sector plan update, 10 Jun 2026)

Status now

Active; HNCDI's five-year term began June 2021, and no renewal was found on pages opened.

Labs Round 8 deep profile (31 Oct 2026), as the researchers wrote it; confidence: verified (HNCDI: IBM newsroom and IBM Research blog); other fields one source.

Sources

1. research.ibm.com/labs/uk
2. research.ibm.com/people/michael-bradley
3. uk.newsroom.ibm.com/2021-06-04-UK-STFC-Hartree-C
4. research.ibm.com/blog/ibm-stfc-accelerating-inno
5. research.ibm.com/blog/fusion-plasma-ai-model