UK plans £100m biosecurity lab with backing from AI developers

The UK government will commit £100m in Wednesday’s Budget to establish a national AI Biosecurity Lab aimed at strengthening defences against emerging biological threats. Officials describe the planned institute as a world first, although full details of its role and remit have yet to emerge. OpenAI and Anthropic will support its creation with £200m worth of AI model credits.

The spending package also includes an additional £120m for the UK’s AI Security Institute, which evaluates risks from the most advanced models. Established in 2023, the institute supports collaborative AI testing. The funding is intended to sustain its work amid growing calls for technical standards and safeguards for AI development.

Cybersecurity measures include £60m for a National Cyber Shield that would use agentic AI to strengthen defences, plus £70m for a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre. The centre would use AI tools to detect vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure and the wider economy. The plans follow precautionary shutdowns of some government sites after critical PHP flaws emerged. No successful exploits have been reported, but experts warn that AI can accelerate the discovery and potential exploitation of long-dormant bugs.