UK government sets out $800 million of AI security funding

LONDON, Oct. 24 (Reuters) – The British government announced plans on Saturday to spend about £600 million ($800 million), mainly to protect people from health and security dangers linked to artificial intelligence (AI).

The largest share of the money will support a new program to protect against biological threats. This includes £100 million for a laboratory that will use AI to find biological dangers and £65 million to develop ways to fight harmful germs and other organisms that cause disease.

AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the goal is to make the AI Biosecurity Lab a leading organization worldwide. It will bring together top scientists from around the world to help protect people from new biological threats.

• Technology companies OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200 million in credits that the biological security program can use to access their AI models.

• Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research, a London-based startup that uses AI in life sciences, will provide other kinds of help.

• The British government will give another £120 million to its existing AI Security Institute.

• £130 million will support two new projects to improve protection against cyberattacks on essential services and the wider economy. These projects are called the National Cyber Shield and the National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre.

• £60 million will go into a fund that invests in British companies using AI to improve robots, machines that can work on their own, and manufacturing.

• £60 million will pay for AI research and contracts to buy AI-related goods and services.

• Another £23 million will support research into how AI affects the economy.

• £18 million will help create a new academy that teaches people how to design computer chips.

• £15 million will pay for a competition that rewards AI ideas that help solve problems faced by the government and the public. The competition will first focus on healthcare.

• £30 million will go to mayors in different regions to support local AI projects.

• Britain's National Cyber Security Centre will receive additional money to expand its operations in Manchester. The government did not say how much it will receive.

• Anthropic alone spent more than $12 billion on running its business last year.

($1 = £0.7472)

(Reported by David Milliken; edited by Alistair Smout)