twig: biosolutions gets Government backing
In this blog, Ethan Almond, Content & Communications Executive at the UK BioIndustry Association (BIA), reflects on the successes and innovative technology of biosolutions company and BIA member twig.
UK bioengineering startup and the BioIndustry Association (BIA) member twig was recently selected as one of the first six companies to receive support through the newly launched Sovereign AI Unit, a £500 million national initiative designed to back British AI companies working in strategically important fields.
The announcement places twig at the heart of the UK’s ambition to remain globally competitive in frontier technologies, with Government backing companies that combine advanced AI with real‑world industrial impact.
As part of this support, twig has been granted access to Isambard-AI, one of the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputers, hosted at the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS). The compute will be used to train and scale frontier AI systems focused on engineering biology – a step-change in compute capacity that could dramatically accelerate the design of new sustainable ingredients.
Why Sovereign AI matters for twig – and the UK
The Sovereign AI Unit was launched in April 2026 to operate more like a state-backed venture investor than a traditional grant programme. Alongside capital, supported companies receive access to national compute infrastructure, fast-track visas for global talent, and help navigating data access and regulation.
For twig, access to Isambard-AI represents a major unlock. Training biological foundation models and design algorithms at scale is computationally intensive, and compute constraints often limit what startups can realistically attempt. Sovereign AI changes that equation, allowing twig to push the boundaries of what’s possible at the intersection of AI and engineering biology.
More broadly, twig’s inclusion highlights the critical role of AI-driven biology in national resilience – from secure supply chains to lower-carbon manufacturing and reduced dependence on imported petrochemicals.
Twig told us:
With our integrated automation and synthetic biology platform, we’ve built the AI-ready datasets to train our foundation model, CANOPY, and this compute allocation from Sovereign AI unlocks the next generation of biological model scaling. It allows us to move beyond incremental strain engineering and build a globally leading capability in the UK, making biomanufacturing viable for a far broader range of ingredients.
Better biosolutions, from the ground up
Founded in 2022, twig is a biosolutions company building a radically faster way to design and scale biologically based chemicals and materials. Its focus is on replacing conventional ingredients – many of which are derived from fossil fuels, intensive agriculture or animal farming – with sustainable, bioengineered alternatives suitable for everyday consumer products, including cosmetics and personal care.
At the core of twig’s approach is a two‑part proprietary platform:
- BioDrive, its AI 'dry lab', which explores millions of possible microbial designs and scores their likely performance before a single physical experiment is run.
- GrowBot, its automated 'wet lab', which rapidly builds and tests those designs at scale, generating high‑quality experimental data with minimal human bias.
Together, these systems allow twig to design microbes that can transform waste feedstocks, such as waste sugar from food processing, into value‑added ingredients. The result is a cost‑competitive, scalable and more stable supply chain than many traditional chemical routes currently used by the cosmetics industry.
A step‑change in R&D speed and efficiency
Traditional bioengineering often involves taking educated guesses at which microbial strain might work, followed by long design cycles and years of iteration. Twig does things differently.
Instead of “taking a punt on one design out of millions”, the company starts with data‑driven predictions. BioDrive identifies where to begin, GrowBot builds and tests vast diversity rapidly, and every experiment – successful or not – feeds back into the system. This means no wasted data, no downtime and continuous improvement of both the AI models and the underlying biology.
Crucially, when twig identifies a successful microbe, it is production-ready from day one, enabling faster licensing and industrial deployment of new ingredients. This closes the gap between discovery and commercial reality – one of the biggest bottlenecks in sustainable chemistry today.
From lab to everyday life
Having already raised seed funding and grown its automated R&D capabilities, twig is now focused on bringing high‑yield, low‑cost, sustainable ingredients out of the lab and into everyday products. By licensing production‑ready microbes, the company aims to enable manufacturers to switch away from environmentally damaging ingredients without compromising on performance or price.
With Sovereign AI backing and access to world‑class compute, twig is positioning itself at the forefront of a new generation of British companies – combining AI, automation and biology to rethink how the stuff we rely on every day is made.
