HM Treasury has announced an investment package for artificial intelligence (AI), covering protection from AI-related threats, support for British companies, and skills and infrastructure. Chancellor John Healey will set out the AI plans in the budget.
The national AI biosecurity initiative will receive £165 million. This includes £100 million for the first AI Biosecurity Lab, which will detect and monitor biological threats, and £65 million for biosurveillance and medical tools against priority pathogens. OpenAI and Anthropic will provide up to £200 million in credits for AI models to support the lab, alongside partnerships with Google DeepMind and Basecamp Research.
The AI Security Institute will receive £120 million for research and testing AI capabilities and risks. National Cyber Shield will get £60 million, including £25 million to support UK AI and cybersecurity developers. The new NERV centre will receive £70 million to use AI to identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and the economy.
The Sovereign AI Fund will receive an additional £60 million to develop UK AI companies, including projects in physical and industrial AI. A further £60 million will fund the Sovereign AI research and development procurement programme, addressing healthcare, AI security and safe deployment. The UK Advanced Chip Design Academy will be established with £18 million to train chip designers and connect UK research with semiconductor manufacturing.
A £15 million AI Challenge Prize will support AI development across the regions, with its first stage focused on healthcare solutions. The Institute for AI Economic Research will receive an additional £23 million over three years to study AI’s effects on productivity, growth, employment and living standards. Manchester will host an AI cybersecurity centre of excellence at the National Cyber Security Centre, while £30 million will support local AI adoption partnerships involving councils, businesses, universities and colleges.
The announcement also provides £10 million a year to study how AI will change jobs and industries and to prepare for those changes. Edinburgh will develop AI chip design capabilities, while Manchester will train specialists. The announcement does not specify when individual measures will take effect.
The government cited examples of AI already in use. The NHS analyses more than 210,000 chest X-rays each month; suspected lung cancer detections within 24 hours have increased by 11.5%, while the average wait for follow-up CT scans has fallen from 6.3 to 5.6 days. HMRC’s digital assistant Ask HMRC handled about 6.3 million enquiries in 2025-26, freeing up the equivalent of around 400 full-time working hours for more complex work.
