UK government backs university AI labs with £60M to make AI cheaper

The UK government is backing two new university AI labs with up to £60m in investment, which will look to develop the “next generation” of AI systems.

The funding will be shared between AI research labs at Oxford University and University College London (UCL), which will look to develop “breakthroughs” in AI on British shores.

The move comes amid a broader push by the UK government to build up its sovereign AI offering and become less reliant on US tech giants. It is hoping AI developments from the labs could make AI cheaper and easier to run for British businesses and citizens.

The UCL lab will focus on creating open-source AI that can run on widely available hardware while the University of Oxford will look to pioneer new approaches to AI without using vast centralised computing power.

The labs will build and expand partnerships across academia, industry and the public sector, the government said.

The labs mark the first major investment under the government-backed AI strategy from the UKRI, which has laid out a vision for AI research that, it says, works for the UK economy and society.

UCL lead professor David Barber said: “While current AI systems are impressive, many still suffer from basic issues such as inaccurate responses to questions.

"These systems often use similar underlying architectures, so SOFAIR will bring together the broader sciences and fresh ideas to create a new generation of open-source models.

"This will reduce dependency on the small number of model providers, boosting UK sovereignty and its position as a global player in AI.”

Oxford University associate professor Jakob Foerster said: “The UK cannot win the global AI race simply by trying to outspend the largest technology companies on data and compute. BOLD is about a different route: discovering fundamentally new ways to build AI that are more efficient, more open and better aligned with human needs."