UK to invest £100m in world-first AI Biosecurity Lab
The United Kingdom has announced plans to establish a national AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL) to strengthen its ability to defend against emerging biological threats.
As part of its Budget announcement on Wednesday, the government will allocate £100 million to establish the facility, described as a world-first initiative, with support from leading artificial intelligence companies.
The Chancellor will also announce millions of pounds in additional funding for various programmes designed to improve the UK’s response to evolving cyber, biological and AI-powered threats.
John Healey said artificial intelligence had the potential to transform everyday life, benefiting businesses, communities, hospitals, schools and the wider economy.
He said he understood the concerns of working people and was committed to developing a uniquely British approach to AI that protects workers, safeguards national interests and ensures the benefits of AI-driven economic growth reach communities across the country.
Although the full details of the new laboratory’s responsibilities and operations have not yet been disclosed, AI Minister Kanishka Narayan described it as a major new global institution that would bring together leading scientific experts to protect the UK’s citizens and national interests as AI technology advances.
He said the initiative would help the country stay ahead of emerging dangers, including cyberattacks and biological threats, while strengthening domestic production of critical technologies needed for national security.
Mr Narayan added that investing in British scientific research, advanced chips and homegrown AI companies would enhance national security, rebuild the country’s industrial capacity and create skilled employment opportunities.
The establishment of the AI Biosecurity Lab will also receive support from leading AI developers OpenAI and Anthropic, which will provide £200 million worth of credits for access to their AI models.
The Chancellor’s spending plans also include an additional £120 million for the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI).
Established by the previous Conservative government in 2023, the institute assesses the risks associated with the most advanced AI models. It has been recognised for promoting cooperation and transparency in AI safety testing.
The additional funding is intended to sustain the institute’s work amid growing calls for stronger technical standards and safeguards governing AI development.
The government will also invest £60 million in a programme called the National Cyber Shield, which will use agentic AI to strengthen the country’s cyber defences.
A further £70 million will go towards establishing a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre.
According to the government, the centre will deploy AI tools to identify cybersecurity weaknesses across the UK’s critical infrastructure and wider economy.
The announcement follows the government’s disclosure that it was among organisations worldwide that had temporarily taken some websites offline as a precaution after serious vulnerabilities were discovered in PHP, a widely used programming language for web development.
Researchers who identified the flaws warned that platforms relying on the language could be vulnerable to potential cyberattacks.
Although no successful exploitation of the vulnerability, known as php2shell, has been reported so far, experts have cautioned that the incident highlights how artificial intelligence can rapidly identify long-standing software flaws that could subsequently be exploited by malicious actors.
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