Wednesday's Budget will commit £100m to an AI Biosecurity Lab, the government announced overnight. The AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, made the announcement and called the lab a "major new global institution", the BBC reports, as carried by Headtopics.
Bloomberg, citing a government statement, reports that OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200m in AI model credits. It says the lab will work with Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research. The government has also announced a separate £65m for developing pathogen countermeasures.
The BBC reports that the Chancellor, John Healey, will also pledge spending on cyber, biological and AI-enabled threats, including an additional £120m for the AI Security Institute. AI Weekly, citing the BBC, puts £130m towards AI-driven national cybersecurity.
Only the £100m is new government money. The contributions from OpenAI and Anthropic come as credits, compute, access and support rather than cash, TECHi notes.
AI Weekly puts the whole package at about £600m. The parts it names add up to £415m, and the reports so far do not account for the difference.