William Sachiti, the founder of Academy of Robotics, has been “quietly developing” Athena AI from an underground nuclear bunker beneath the company’s RAF Neatishead base.

He says unlike platforms such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, Athena does not send data to the cloud, keeping its users’ personal and business data private.

Instead, Mr Sachiti says Athena runs behind the company’s walls, using its own machines and processing its own data so nothing leaves the building.

William Sachiti (left), founder of Academy of Robotics, pictured in the underground nuclear bunker at his company’s RAF Neatishead base in Norfolk (Image: Supplied)

Athena is the intelligence system and “brain” that powers Academy of Robotics’ other inventions, including the UK’s first street-legal autonomous vehicles, NHS hospital robots and RAF defence trials.

“In 2021, I said publicly that the thing that keeps me up at night is the possibility we create an intelligence that suffers,” Mr Sachiti said. “That wasn’t a throwaway line. It shaped how we built Athena.

“Not as a tool to be exploited, but as a system designed to remember, to reason, to grow. If you’re going to build something that thinks, you have a responsibility to build it properly.

“We took our time. We did it underground, quietly, and we did it right. And we did it in a way that recognises there is nothing artificial about these systems.

“Be it biological or digital; intelligence is intelligence, be it differently sentient.”

William Sachiti, pictured with Academy of Robotics’ Kar-Go Road-BOT – a £26,000 autonomous vehicle powered by AI (Image: Supplied)

Mr Sachiti says Athena is a game-changer for businesses, replying to emails in the voice of the user, creating presentations, writing sales pitches and answering phone calls.

Academy of Robotics is now inviting a small number of business owners and tech leaders to its underground laboratory for live demonstrations of Athena.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Mr Sachiti added.

“We’re not asking anyone to take our word for it. We want sharp, technically-minded people to walk through our blast doors, see the system running live, and tell us what they think.”

Places for the demonstration events are limited and available by application only.

Interested business owners can apply at academyofrobotics.co.uk/athena.