UK plans biosecurity lab with backing from major AI companies

The UK government plans to establish an AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL), backed by £100m in funding under the National AI Biosecurity Initiative. The institute forms part of measures to be announced in the Budget on Wednesday to address biological threats, cyber-intrusions and AI-enabled risks. AI minister Kanishka Narayan said it would bring together scientific expertise to help the country anticipate emerging threats and develop critical technology.

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

The AI Security Institute, founded in 2023, is to receive £120m to continue evaluating AI security risks. A further £60m investment in a National Cyber Shield will use agentic AI to strengthen cyber-defences, alongside £70m for a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre. The commitments come as attackers increasingly use AI models to probe sensitive systems and organisations patch critical PHP bugs discovered using AI.