UK to invest £100m in AI Biosecurity Lab
The UK will commit £100m to a new AI Biosecurity Lab as part of the Budget.
At a glance
- The UK plans to invest £100m in a new AI Biosecurity Lab.
- OpenAI and Anthropic will provide £200m in AI model credits.
- The UK also announced £120m for the AI Security Institute.
The UK said on Wednesday it will create a national AI Biosecurity Lab, a planned world first research institute, as part of the government's Budget.
The government said it would put £100m into the lab to strengthen defences against emerging biological threats, with support from leading AI firms.
It said the chancellor would also pledge millions of pounds for measures aimed at improving the UK's response to evolving cyber, biological and AI-enabled threats.
John Healey said AI could transform daily life and that the government was taking a distinctively British approach that would not leave workers behind while defending national interests.
AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said the lab would be a major new global institution bringing together top scientific expertise to help the UK protect its citizens and goals as AI develops.
He said the UK needed to stay ahead of threats such as cyber attacks and biological risks while building more critical technology for security.
The government said the full details of the lab's role and remit were still to emerge.
It said OpenAI and Anthropic had agreed to provide £200m worth of AI model credits for use of their models.
Separately, the chancellor announced an extra £120m for the UK AI Security Institute, which was set up in 2023 to assess risks from advanced AI models.
The funding would help the institute continue its work amid calls for technical standards and guardrails.
The plans also included a £60m National Cyber Shield to use agentic AI for cyber defences, and £70m for a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre to use AI for detecting cyber vulnerabilities.
The announcement followed the UK government saying it had taken some sites offline with other organisations worldwide after critical flaws were found in a popular programming language.
Researchers who found the flaws in PHP said platforms using it could be at risk. No successful exploits of the php2shell flaw had been reported.
Experts said the incident showed how AI could quickly surface dormant bugs and make them potentially exploitable.
Source: BBC
Questions and answers
- What is the UK AI Biosecurity Lab?
- The UK said it will create a national AI Biosecurity Lab with £100m in Budget funding to strengthen defences against emerging biological threats.
- How much AI funding is the UK investing?
- The UK plans £100m for the AI Biosecurity Lab and £120m more for the AI Security Institute. OpenAI and Anthropic are also providing £200m in AI model credits.
- What other AI and cyber projects did the UK announce?
- The chancellor also announced a £60m National Cyber Shield and £70m for a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre.
