OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepSeek are supporting the initiative.
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The UK government has established the AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL) as part of its National AI Biosecurity Initiative. It has committed £100 million ($134 million) in funding to the project, which will also be supported by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepSeek. The AI Biosecurity Lab will bring in experts in biosecurity and life sciences who will work with frontier AI to detect biological threats and accelerate the development of vaccines and medical treatments. It will operate as an independent, non-profit organization, but it will also team up with public-sector organizations and academic institutions.
In its announcement, the UK government says AI systems are "creating unprecedented opportunities for scientific discovery," but they're also creating "new biological risks and could lower barriers to harmful activity." An AI research lab in California, for instance, recently claimed to have created a virus with AI, which it had then administered into a human patient. The virus was created to infect antibiotic-resistant bacteria rather than for anything nefarious, but the lab's work demonstrates how frontier AI can be used for biotech purposes. "AIBL's cutting-edge research will strengthen UK and global resilience to a wide range of biological risks, including those enabled by advances in AI," the UK government said.
Kanishka Narayan, Britain's AI minister, said the lab "will be a major new global institution, bringing together world-leading scientific expertise to protect people from emerging biological threats and ensure Britain leads the world in AI safety and security."
OpenAI is backing the initiative by providing £100 million in credits that the lab can use to access its most advanced models and computing infrastructure. Meanwhile, Anthropic will provide the lab with £100 million model credits. The lab will also collaborate with Google DeepMind and UK AI life sciences company Basecamp Research. DeepMind's biosecurity experts will work on research with the lab, as well as provide access to frontier Gemini models, while Basecamp will provide it with AI-biology models and its technical expertise when it comes to biosecurity challenges.