Microsoft recognition validates SCC’s ability to build and run secure AI for regulated organisations across commercial and public sector, weeks into its £100m AI investment programme. 

Birmingham, UK — 3rd August 2026 — SCC has been awarded the Microsoft Frontier Partner badge and has achieved the AI Platform on Microsoft Azure specialisation, two of Microsoft’s most demanding recognitions for AI capability. The awards land within weeks of SCC launching Project Sirius, its five-year programme to invest up to £100m in AI, and give early, independent evidence that the investment is already delivering. 

The Frontier Partner badge is awarded within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program to organisations that can show advanced capability across the full Microsoft stack. It requires several Solutions Partner designations and specialisations, including Copilot, AI Apps on Azure, Data Security and Identity and Access Management, and recognises the ability to design, build, deploy, govern and secure AI. The AI Platform on Azure specialisation validates a narrower and more technical claim: that SCC can build AI applications and agents on the Azure AI platform and run them in production. 

Together the two recognitions describe the work SCC does for customers. Not advising on AI in theory, and not running a single demonstration, but building Frontier solutions on Azure, putting the security and data controls in from the start, and keeping them running. 

That capability sits at the centre of Project Sirius, which spans AI solutions, AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, the digital workplace and hyperscaler marketplaces, and includes new Advanced Technology Centres in Birmingham and Paris. It also reflects a deliberate position on sovereignty. SCC delivers with UK teams and handles data to a UK standard, which matters to the public sector and regulated organisations it serves. 

For customers, the recognition speaks to a specific problem. Most organisations are past the question of whether to use AI. The harder question is how to move from a promising pilot to something that runs safely in production, every day. 

James Henigan, Managing Director at SCC Digital, said: “That move from pilot to production is the work this badge recognises. It tells our customers we can take them from an idea to a secure, governed, build running in the business, not just a proof of concept that never leaves the lab. For the C-cuite in all organisations, that is the difference that matters.” 

SCC’s work with the law firm Browne Jacobson shows the approach in practice. SCC built a secure instance of Azure OpenAI, moving from proof of concept to a production tool the firm’s lawyers now use daily to summarise documents, check for inconsistencies and test how legal precedent applies to client situations. The build let the firm explore AI safely and at pace, without trading control for speed. 
 

Richard Knott, Head of Cloud AI at SCC, said: “The AI Platform specialisation is about building on Azure and running what you build. We design the application, put the security and data controls in from the start, and keep it running. For a regulated organisation that needs its data handled to a UK standard, that discipline is the difference between an experiment and something it can depend on.” 

SCC Digital works with enterprise, public sector and critical infrastructure organisations across the UK, covering cloud, data, AI, cybersecurity and application development.