The UK will invest about £600 million to address potential AI risks and plans to build an AI biosecurity laboratory

According to Reuters, the UK government announced on October 24 an investment of about £600 million (about 5.36 billion yuan) to address public health and safety risks brought by AI, with the biosecurity program receiving the most funding. The UK will spend £100 million to establish an AI biosecurity laboratory to identify biological threats, and invest another £65 million to develop prevention and response measures against pathogens; UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said he hopes to build the laboratory into an important institution with global influence. OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200 million worth of AI model usage credits for the biosecurity program, and Google DeepMind and London startup Basecamp Research will also provide support. The UK AI Safety Institute received an additional £120 million in government funding, £130 million will be invested in two new projects, the National Cyber Shield and the National Cyber Risk Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Center, and the remaining funds will go to AI research and procurement contracts, robotics and manufacturing investment funds, a chip design academy, public policy awards, and local AI projects, among others.