Key facts
- Nvidia will donate $250 million in computing resources over five years to support AI safety research in the UK.
- The commitment provides $50 million in compute access annually.
- UK research labs BOLD, SOFAIR, and Imperial College London will benefit from the initiative.
- The compute access will be delivered through UK-based NVIDIA Cloud Partners.
- The UK's AI Safety Institute (AISI) offers grants of up to £200,000 per project for AI safety and security research.
US chipmaker Nvidia has pledged $250 million worth of computing resources to Britain over five years to fund AI security research, bolstering the country's ambitions to become a global center for AI governance and security.
Nvidia's founder and CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday that the UK would receive accelerated computing resources worth $50 million annually, dedicated to agentic safety testing and helping British researchers strengthen safeguards for increasingly powerful AI. "AI capability and safety must advance together," he said.
Scrutiny of AI safety has intensified after developers including Anthropic and OpenAI disclosed instances of rogue or undesired behavior by AI agents, with some industry figures warning the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity. British AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the donation would help ensure the AI of the future is "safe, secure and that serves people's best interests."
The donation will connect areas of British research, including BOLD, led by the University of Oxford, which is developing approaches that help AI systems learn, adapt and operate alongside people, as well as robotics safety at Imperial College and programmes at University College London.
Separately, the UK's AI Safety Institute (AISI) offers grants of up to £200,000 per project through its Challenge Fund to address pressing questions in AI safety and security. The AISI also provides some projects with compute resources and opportunities to collaborate with their experts. The fund is open to researchers at eligible UK and international academic institutions and non-profit organizations.