UK establishes world's first AI biosecurity laboratory
The UK government is setting up the AI Biosecurity Lab with £100 million in public funding and promises of up to £200 million from leading AI companies.
The UK government has announced that it will create the AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL), the world's first organisation dedicated to using advanced artificial intelligence to fight biological threats. The project is part of the National AI Biosecurity Initiative and supports the UK's wider plan to protect people from biological threats.
The project will receive £100 million in public funding, along with promises of up to £200 million from leading AI companies. The government plans to bring together public funding and donations from charities and other private donors. The lab will work with government bodies, universities and businesses.
The lab's main goal is to bring together AI experts and biological scientists. They will work to develop tools that can find biological threats, stop them and help people respond to them. At first, the lab will focus on finding new biological threats earlier and speeding up the creation, testing and use of vaccines and other medical tools to protect people.
AIBL plans to help national biosecurity centres and businesses in the UK respond more quickly to disease outbreaks in Britain and around the world. OpenAI, Anthropic, Basecamp Research and Google DeepMind will take part in its work.
OpenAI will contribute £100 million in computing credits (tokens) and access to its most powerful AI models through its Rosalind Biodefense programme. Anthropic will contribute up to £100 million through credits, secure access to its AI models and dedicated technical support.
Google DeepMind and UK-based Basecamp Research will take part in research projects and help develop AI tools for science. Basecamp Research will share access to its AI models for biology and provide technical knowledge. Scientists and experts from Google DeepMind will work with others on research and provide access to Gemini models and specialised AI models for scientific work.