UK pledges to spend £600m to defend against AI health and security threats

The UK has pledged to spend £600m to defend the public against threats to health and security from artificial intelligence.

The biggest chunk of the funding ‌will go to a new biosecurity initiative, including £100m for a ​laboratory using AI to detect biological threats and £65m to develop countermeasures against pathogens.

In recent weeks, industry commentators have spoken about their increasing concern humanity could be wiped out as a result of AI, with some saying they fear the technology could be used to create new diseases or biological weapons.

The new "biosecurity lab" will seek to use AI to protect against potential future pandemics, Chancellor John Healey announced.

The government's £100m will be backed by up to £200m worth of credits from AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic, creating a "world-first" unit to help develop medical "countermeasures" for new pathogens, officials said.

Mr Healey will unveil more details in the budget next week, which he said would deliver a "distinctively British" approach to the technology as he acknowledged the "concerns of working people" about its rise.

The UK's AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the lab would be a "major new global institution" bringing together world-leading scientific expertise to keep the country safe.

An additional £120m in investment will go towards Britain's AI Security Institute to develop standards guarding against the risks of the technology, the Treasury said.

A further £10m a year will be dedicated to understanding how AI will change industry, amid widespread fears over the prospect of job losses, and how Britain needs to prepare for it.

And a new £70m National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (Nerv) centre will also use AI tools to detect cyber threats across the UK's critical infrastructure and economy.

In the last few days, it emerged that AI agents discovered flaws in the PHP programming language ​that underpins much of the internet, which had been hiding in plain sight for years.

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) experts worked with OpenAI, whose model was used to discover the issues, to contain the fallout.

Critics have called for AI development to be slowed down to decrease the risk to humanity but so far, leaders in the countries where most AI firms are based - the US and China - have shown little interest in limiting the pace.

Jordan Cummins, a director at the CBI, said: "The Chancellor is right to put security, resilience and trust at the heart of the UK's approach to AI. Firms will adopt AI faster and at greater scale when they are confident that it is safe, secure and working in the interests of their workforce."

Shadow AI minister Ben Spencer said: "We need a clear plan to access the world's best technology, build resilience and turn British technological strengths into international influence.

"The government must explain how its approach squares with the Prime Minister's drive for EU alignment. Will ministers rule out regulatory alignment that restricts access to vital US technology for our defence and cyber security?"

Included in the £600m are:
• £130m that will go towards new projects to improve cyber defences for critical infrastructure and the wider economy,
known as the ‌National Cyber Shield and the National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre
• £60m to go towards a fund that will invest in British companies using AI to advance robotics, autonomous systems and manufacturing
• £60m to be used for AI research and ​procurement contracts
• An extra £23 million to go to ​research on the economic impact of AI
• £18m to go to a new chip design academy
• £15m ⁠will fund a prize for AI solutions to public policy problems, initially focused on healthcare
• £30m will go to regional ⁠mayors to support local AI work
• Britain's ​National Cyber Security Centre will receive an unspecified sum to ​expand in Manchester

(c) Sky News 2026: UK pledges to spend £600m to defend against AI health and security threats