Two university-led research labs will share up to £60 billion of government funding in a bid to make artificial intelligence cheaper to operate, more reliable and easier for ordinary British businesses to use, ministers have announced.
The labs, run by the University of Oxford and the University of London, will have the task of building the foundations for the next wave of AI success on home soil, rather than leaving the field to a few deep-rooted American tech giants. Supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and given access to massive computing power worth tens of millions of pounds, the two institutions represent a deliberate attempt to compete on ideas rather than raw spending power.
For the small and medium-sized firms that form the backbone of the UK economy, the tone is positive. Most of today’s AI capabilities are expensive to implement and concentrated in the hands of a few model providers. New labs are being asked to change the underlying economics, create open tools that can run on widely available hardware, possibly including mainstream consumer computers, and rethink how AI systems learn so that they no longer require large, centralized data centers.
The first, the Science of Fundamental AI Research (SOFAIR) Lab, will be led by Professor David Barber at UCL, working alongside the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh. It will bring together researchers from computer science, mathematics, statistics and neuroscience to design new types of AI systems, with the express purpose of making advanced tools cheaper and more accessible.
“Although current AI systems are impressive, many still suffer from basic problems such as inaccurate answers to questions,” said Professor Barber. “These systems often use the same basic architecture, so SOFAIR will bring together extensive science and new ideas to create a new generation of open source models. This will reduce dependence on a small number of model providers, increasing the UK’s dominance and its position as a global player in AI.”
The second, the British Open-ended Learning and Discovery (BOLD) Lab, will be led by Professor Jakob Foerster at Oxford, with UCL and Imperial College London. It focuses on how machines learn from scratch, building systems that can adapt to new environments, navigate virtual environments and turn research into practical tools for workplaces, infrastructure and public services.
Professor Foerster was not specific about this strategy. “The UK cannot win the global AI race by trying to outcompete the big tech companies with data and computing,” he said. “BOLD is about a different path: finding new ways to make AI more efficient, more open and better aligned with people’s needs.”
Political structure is as much about security as it is about productivity. AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said Britain could “set the agenda for what’s next”, arguing that building capacity at home reduces dependence on others and strengthens national resilience. The time was marked, with an announcement made on Alan Turing’s 114th birthday.
Professor Charlotte Deane, chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and senior owner of the UKRI AI Programme, said the UK is “one of the few countries in the world that has all the right ingredients, from a deep pool of AI experts to world-class universities”, and that the labs will return “bold, high-reward AI ideas that can shape future AI ideas.
That desire is in line with a series of recent government interventions in the sector, from a major AI investment package aimed at boosting growth and jobs to funding for shared supercomputing capacity that gives researchers and startups access to advanced computing. The thread running throughout is access: the gap between firms that can afford the AI frontier and those that can’t.
The case made by the labs goes directly to the problem that business owners already see. AI is no longer the norm for big businesses, and a growing number of small firms are finding ways to use the technology without breaking the bank. Low-cost, open-source models that use modest hardware can push that door wide, lowering the cost of entry for firms that can absorb six-figure computing bills.
The money, available through the EPSRC, will run over the next six years. Each lab will also receive £2 million earmarked to hire at least 10 doctoral students, as part of a wider effort to grow homegrown talent, and both will work alongside the Alan Turing Institute and UKRI’s existing AI research centres. The commitment, set out in full on GOV.UK, goes further than originally planned, doubling the number of labs from one to two and increasing the total from £40 million to up to £60 million. It is part of UKRI’s wider £1.6 billion AI strategy to strengthen the UK’s position over the next four years.
Whether that translates into cheaper tools on the desks of British SMEs will take years to judge. But the way forward is clear: the government is betting that the path to wider adoption is through cost, not just power.
