Britain bets big on AI to defend against the threats AI is helping create

The UK government is throwing £130 million at AI-powered cyber defenses, including plans to deploy autonomous AI agents across critical infrastructure to hunt down security flaws before attackers get there first.

The money is part of a wider £600 million-plus AI spending spree announced by the Treasury ahead of this week's Budget, with ministers also promising to tackle biological threats, bankroll British AI firms, and reduce the country's dependence on foreign technology.

Of the cyber funding, £60 million will go towards a new National Cyber Shield that uses agentic AI to bolster Britain's defenses. That includes a £25 million challenge fund for UK cybersecurity firms and plans for a regulatory sandbox to test autonomous security tools across critical infrastructure, government and industry.

Another £70 million will establish the National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre, using AI to sniff out vulnerabilities across Britain's infrastructure and wider economy.

The announcement comes just days after the PHP2Shell security scare, which saw dozens of government websites taken offline after critical flaws were discovered in the widely used scripting language.

Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) worked with OpenAI to coordinate disclosure of the PHP flaws and give affected vendors time to prepare fixes, after AI-assisted researchers uncovered the vulnerabilities.

Whitehall has already been experimenting with AI-powered vulnerability hunting. AI minister Kanishka Narayan said last week that the technology had uncovered 500 previously unknown security flaws across significant parts of the public sector.

It remains unclear how much freedom the new AI defenders will have to act without human intervention, or when they'll be deployed.

Ciaran Martin, former head of the NCSC, welcomed the investment, pointing to the week's events as evidence that Britain needs to get its cyber defenses in order. "We need to padlock our systems, and harness AI for defense," he said.

The Treasury is also handing another £120 million to the AI Security Institute (AISI), which tests advanced AI systems for dangerous capabilities and researches ways to keep them under control.

Cybersecurity isn't the only threat keeping ministers busy. Another £165 million will fund a National AI Biosecurity Initiative, including £100 million for what the government claims will be the world's first dedicated AI Biosecurity Lab.

The independent, non-profit lab will use frontier AI models to detect biological threats and accelerate the development of vaccines and treatments. OpenAI is contributing £100 million in compute and model credits, while Anthropic is offering up to £100 million in model credits, model access and technical support.

Google DeepMind and British biotech firm Basecamp Research are also involved, while the remaining £65 million will go towards biosurveillance and medical countermeasures against dangerous pathogens.

There's something for the homegrown AI industry, too. The government is adding £60 million to its Sovereign AI Fund to invest in British companies developing technologies including robotics and autonomous systems, plus another £60 million for AI research and development procurement.

A further £18 million will fund an Advanced Chip Design Academy, intended to help Britain develop more of its own semiconductor expertise rather than relying quite so heavily on technology designed overseas.

The package also includes £30 million for local AI partnerships, £15 million for an AI challenge prize initially focused on healthcare, and £23 million for research into AI's impact on jobs and the economy. Manchester will get a new NCSC AI Cyber Security Centre of Excellence to train government specialists.

Additionally, ministers are setting aside £10 million a year to study how AI will reshape employment and industry, including the jobs it might make redundant.

The government clearly has high hopes for AI. Whether the technology can live up to them without creating a fresh set of problems is another matter.®