IT之家 October 24 news: According to Reuters, on the 24th local time, the UK government announced that it will invest approximately 600 million pounds (IT Home note: equivalent to about 5.36 billion RMB at the current exchange rate), focusing on addressing public health and security risks posed by AI.
Among this, the biosafety program will receive the most funding. The UK government will spend 100 million pounds (approximately 893 million RMB at current exchange rates) to build an AI biosafety laboratory to identify biological threats, and invest another 65 million pounds (approximately 581 million RMB at current exchange rates) to developprevention and response measures against pathogens。
UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said the government hopes to build the AI biosafety laboratory into an important institution with global influence, bringing together the world's top research forces to protect the public from emerging biological threats.
Other investments and support measures are as follows:
OpenAI and Anthropic will provide the biosafety program with AI model usage credits worth up to 200 million pounds (approximately 1.787 billion RMB at current exchange rates).
Google DeepMind and the London AI life sciences startup Basecamp Research will also provide support.
The UK AI Safety Institute will receive an additional 120 million pounds (approximately 1.072 billion RMB at current exchange rates) in government funding.
130 million pounds (approximately 1.161 billion RMB at current exchange rates) will go into two new projects, the "National Cyber Shield" and the "National Cyber Risk Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre," to improve cybersecurity protection for critical infrastructure and the economy as a whole.
60 million pounds (approximately 536 million RMB at current exchange rates) will be used to set up an investment fund supporting UK companies that use AI to advance robotics, autonomous systems, and manufacturing.
60 million pounds (approximately 536 million RMB at current exchange rates) will be used for AI research and procurement contracts.
An additional 23 million pounds (approximately 205 million RMB at current exchange rates) will research AI's impact on the economy.
18 million pounds (approximately 161 million RMB at current exchange rates) will be used to establish a new chip design academy.
15 million pounds (approximately 134 million RMB at current exchange rates) will be used to set up prizes encouraging the use of AI to solve public policy challenges, with the first round focusing on healthcare.
30 million pounds (approximately 268 million RMB at current exchange rates) will be allocated to regional mayors to support local AI projects.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre will also receive additional funding to expand its Manchester operations; the specific amount has not yet been announced.