The government has announced £300 million to launch the AI Biosecurity Lab (AIBL), the world's first dedicated AI biosecurity organisation.

The lab will also be supported by up to £200 million in company commitments from OpenAI and Anthropic. OpenAI will provide £100 million in compute and model credits and trusted access to its most capable relevant models through the Rosalind Biodefense programme and Anthropic will provide up to £100 million in model credits, trusted model access and dedicated technical support.

It will develop technical capabilities that help the UK better understand, prevent, detect and respond to biological threats, building on the UK’s broader Biological Security Strategy.

The government has warned that advances in AI are creating unprecedented opportunities for scientific discovery, but they are also changing the biological risk landscape. AI can accelerate research, improve our understanding of diseases, and support the discovery and development of new medical countermeasures. However, increasingly capable AI systems also create new biological risks and could lower barriers to harmful activity.

The lab will harness frontier AI to support partners, including the UK’s national biosecurity centres and world leading life sciences industry, to detect biological threats earlier and accelerate the discovery, development and testing of vaccines, treatments and other medical countermeasures. This should enable the UK and the world to respond faster to disease outbreaks and strengthen resilience against future biological risks.

AIBL's mission will be to strengthen biosecurity by harnessing frontier AI. It will bring together frontier AI and biological science talent to develop practical technical capabilities that improve the UK’s ability to understand, prevent, detect and respond to biological threats.

Initial research will focus on developing and deploying capabilities that enhance early detection of emerging biological threats and accelerate the development of vaccines, treatments and other medical countermeasures.

AIBL will work with public-sector organisations, academic institutions, industry partners and frontier AI companies in the UK and internationally, bringing together expertise across biosecurity, life sciences and AI, building deep research collaborations that help translate advances in AI into practical capabilities that strengthen resilience to biological threats.