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Chancellor John Healey has announced a new “biosecurity lab”, which will use AI to help protect the UK against pandemics of the future, as part of a package of investment in artificial intelligence. The government will invest £100 million, and AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic have pledged up to a combined £200 million to the “world-first” unit, which will help to develop medical “countermeasures” for new pathogens, officials said. The lab will come alongside wider efforts by the government to use AI to protect the UK’s interests and boost its homegrown capability, amid growing concerns about the risks of letting the technology advance unchecked.
The chancellor will set out further details at next week's Budget, which he has said will deliver a “distinctively British” approach to the technology, even as he acknowledged the “concerns of working people” about its rise. The UK’s AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the lab would be a “major new global institution” bringing together world-leading scientific expertise to keep the country safe. As part of the wider package, an additional £120 million investment will go towards Britain’s AI Security Institute to develop standards guarding against the risks of the technology, the Treasury said.
AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said the lab would be a major global institution (PA Wire) The Chancellor’s plans include £10 million a year dedicated to understanding how AI will change industry, amid widespread fears over the prospect of job losses, and how Britain needs to prepare for it. A new £70 million National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (Nerv) centre will also use AI tools to detect cyber threats across the UK’s critical infrastructure and economy, Mr Healey said. It comes in the wake of global online disruption caused by a security flaw in the popular PHP programming language that saw 32 Government services temporarily offline amid a scramble to address vulnerabilities.
National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) experts worked with OpenAI, whose technology was used to discover the issues, to contain the fallout. Critics have called for a slowdown in AI development amid warnings from experts that the technology could wipe out humanity within a decade without controls in place. The Government has said robust safeguards must be in place to ensure developers are able to build machines that keep human beings in charge.
Mr Narayan said the UK needed to use AI to respond to cybersecurity issues, revealing in an interview with the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson show on Friday that the Government had used the technology to uncover 500 “novel vulnerabilities” across “significant areas of the public sector.” It comes in the wake of global online disruption caused by a security flaw in the popular PHP programming language (PA) Separately, the Chancellor is also expected to promise an extra £20.4 billion to state-owned, economic development lender the British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund, as first reported by the Financial Times. More than 100,000 jobs across the country are expected to be created by the move from 2028-29 including in the AI sector, the Government said. Business groups welcomed the AI package but opposition critics dismissed it as a “shopping list of projects” without any clear strategy.
BI director of policy Kate Shoesmith said: “More funding for the Sovereign AI Fund should strengthen the cohorts of the UK’s home-grown talent, while a new UK Advanced Chip Design Academy is a step towards bolstering capability and resilience.” She added: “But we must not stop here. AI offers huge opportunities for businesses. Our research shows adoption is growing rapidly among firms, but it is at varying degrees and sectoral differences remain.
“Government should now look to address barriers to AI adoption to unlock growth across all firms.” Ben Spencer, Shadow Minister for Artificial Intelligence (Getty) Jordan Cummins, a director at the CBI, said: “The Chancellor is right to put security, resilience and trust at the heart of the UK’s approach to AI. Firms will adopt AI faster and at greater scale when they are confident that it is safe, secure and working in the interests of their workforce.” He said “the next priority is to broaden AI skills across the whole workforce”, adding: “If we really want to leverage AI to boost productivity and living standards, then we need to build people’s confidence to use AI well and help them to better understand the benefits it brings.” Shadow AI minister Ben Spencer said: “We need a clear plan to access the world’s best technology, build resilience and turn British technological strengths into international influence. “The Government must explain how its approach squares with the Prime Minister’s drive for EU alignment.
Will ministers rule out regulatory alignment that restricts access to vital US technology for our defence and cyber security? “AI is built by business, not Government. “Ministers should cut burdens on British firms, fix grid connection delays, reject protectionism and instead back the capabilities we need, including stronger cybersecurity and biosecurity, and ensuring our AI Security Institute maintains its world-leading position and advance access to AI models.”
Source: The Independent
