Arena
\nAt the heart of the programme will be the Scaling Trust Arena: a platform for open competitions designed to test AI systems’ capabilities in multi-agent coordination across digital and physical worlds, with a multi-million pound prize pool for the strongest teams.
\nBy carefully designing this live adversarial environment and the challenges deployed within it, we plan to both measure the state of the art in multi-agent security capabilities and failure modes, and to exert pressure for secure agentic interactions to emerge.
\n
Help build the Arena
The request for proposals is now closed.
\nWe are looking for a partner to co-design, build and maintain the Arena, which we plan to launch in Q3 2026.
\nActing as an extension of the Scaling Trust programme team, this partner will be capable of operating at pace, to deliver a robust, modular testing ground that can move from prototype to public operation over the course of the programme.
\nBeyond providing core engineering capacity, the ideal partner will help shape the Arena’s fundamental mechanisms including challenge design, scoring systems and community interfaces, whilst ensuring the platform remains secure, observable and accessible to a global community of participants.
\nThe Arena is intended to be a central interface across the wider Scaling Trust programme. We expect the Arena partner to engage with grantees from other tracks in order to help integrate their work into the Arena.
\n
Key information:
Contract length: one year with potential to renew for up to three years (the duration of the programme)
Contract value: up to £10m
Application timeline:
Following the submission of initial two-page proposals, the Programme Team will contact shortlisted applicants between 15 and 30 April 2026 to discuss their ideas. Where appropriate, applicants will then be invited to submit a more detailed proposal.
\nRead the full details in the request for proposals.
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\nNB: clarification questions should be submitted no later than 4 days prior to the relevant deadline date – questions received after this date will not be reviewed.
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