UK Chancellor of the Exchequer unveils ambitious AI plan
Chancellor unveils Britain’s ambitious plan for AI
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey unveiled a package of AI investment plans, which will incorporate AI into the budget bill to be released next week, covering AI safety, biological risk defense and the domestic AI industry. Safety spending includes a £165m national AI biosecurity program, of which £100m is for the AI Biosecurity Lab, which is supported by OpenAI and Anthropic with up to £200m in model credits and cooperates with Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research; the AI Security Institute receives an additional £120m; there is also a £60m National Cyber Shield and a £70m NERV center to use AI to strengthen cyber defense. On the industry side, the plans include an additional £60m for the Sovereign AI Fund, £18m to build an advanced chip design academy, £23m over three years for the Institute for AI Economics, and an additional £10m per year to study AI's impact on employment and industry.
The UK incorporates AI safety spending into the budget bill; the scale of funding for AISI and the AI biosecurity lab can serve as a reference for observing government-side safety research funding.