UK backs new AI research labs in Oxford and London with £60m

Two new research labs led by Oxford and University College London are to share up to £60m in government funding to develop breakthroughs in AI.

Supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the government says the labs will open up new avenues for what AI can do. By focusing on changes to the fundamentals of AI that could lower costs and improve performance, it says the work will help open AI to far more organisations by supporting new breakthroughs, boosting productivity and accelerating innovation across the UK. 

The Science of Fundamental AI Research (SOFAIR) Lab will develop new open source AI technologies that can run on widely available hardware. 

Led by David Barber at UCL alongside the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh, it will bring together researchers from across computer science, mathematics, statistics and neuroscience to explore new ways to design AI systems. This will make advanced AI tools cheaper and more accessible.

The British Open-ended Learning and Discovery (BOLD) Lab will rethink how AI learns from the world around us.

Led by Jakob Foerster at the University of Oxford with UCL and Imperial College London, the lab will develop systems that can learn more efficiently, adapt to new situations and navigate physical spaces.

By focusing on practical, human-centred AI, the lab will help turn research into tools that can be used in workplaces, infrastructure and public services, supporting wider adoption across the economy. 

The UK government is making up to £60m available through UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to support these labs over the next six years, alongside access to large scale computing power.

Both labs will invest in AI researchers at every career stage, with £2m per lab earmarked for hiring at least 10 doctoral students. The labs will also work closely with existing leaders in British AI research, like the Alan Turing Institute and UKRI’s AI research hubs.

“We are one of the few countries in the world with all the right ingredients, from a deep pool of top AI experts to world-class universities,” says Charlotte Deane, senior responsible owner for the UKRI AI Programme and executive chair of EPSRC.

“These labs will put that advantage to work, backing the bold, high-reward ideas that can shape the future of AI. We look forward to working with the labs to maximise the benefits for the UK.”