The UK government said it will establish an AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL) as part of the National AI Biosecurity Initiative, with £100m in funding for the “world first” institute, as part of the Budget on Wednesday.

The chancellor is also to fund initiatives to respond to threats including cyber-intrusions, biological threats and AI-enabled issues.

“I am setting out a distinctively British approach to AI. One that doesn’t leave workers behind and defends our national interest, while ensuring the benefits of AI-enabled growth are felt right across the country,” said John Healey.

British tech

AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the AIBL would bring together scientific expertise to help the country stay ahead of emerging threats, including cyber-attacks and biological risks, while building critical technology.

“By backing British science, advanced chips and our own AI companies, we can strengthen our national security, rebuild Britain’s industrial strength and create good, skilled jobs across the country,” Narayan said.

OpenAI and Anthropic are to pledge £100m each in AI model credits to support the use of their models, while Google’s DeepMind unit will also provide biosecurity expertise and access to Gemini models, and Basecamp will similarly provide expertise and AI biology models.

The AI Security Institute, founded in 2023, is to receive £120m to continue its efforts into the evaluation of AI security risks, while a £60m investment into a “National Cyber Shield” will use agentic AI to improve cyber-defences, alongside a £70m investment into a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre.

The funding comes at a time when AI models are increasingly being used by attackers to probe sensitive systems across a range of sectors, while organisations around the world are patching critical bugs in PHP that were discovered using AI.