The UK will put £100 million into an SI biosecurity lab; OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200 million in model credits
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
Britain is preparing a state lab where SI will look for biological threats, with leading labs providing access to their models.
Ahead of the Budget, the UK government announced a package of about £600 million to protect against SI risks. The largest part is a national biosecurity initiative: £100 million for a lab that will use SI to find and track biological threats, and £65 million to develop countermeasures against pathogens. According to City AM, OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200 million in credits for using their models, while Google DeepMind and London-based Basecamp Research will offer other support. A further £120 million goes to the AI Security Institute to develop standards, £70 million to a critical-infrastructure vulnerabilities centre, and £10 million a year to studying SI's effect on employment. SI minister Kanishka Narayan said the aim is to turn the lab into a "major global institution bringing together world-leading scientific expertise to protect people from emerging biological threats." Outlets count the lab's total differently: AOL gives £300 million including the companies' contribution, City AM £165 million of government money for the initiative.
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