June 14, 2023

UKRI announce over £50 million to develop trustworthy and secure AI

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is announcing over £50 million of funding to develop trustworthy and secure AI that can help solve major challenges.

These new investments, through the UKRI Technology Missions Fund and UKRI Turing AI World Leading Fellows scheme, continue to build and expand the UK’s global strengths in AI, working towards AI that acts for the public good and in pursuit of solving global challenges.

Journalists came along to this Science Media Centre press briefing to hear from some of the recipients of part of this funding to hear all about the projects and research that they are leading and what exactly they hope to achieve, such as:

• A Consortium project, led by the University of Southampton, that has been awarded £31 million, that will fund research to understand responsible and trustworthy AI, its development, integration into existing systems, and its societal impacts.
• The Digital Good Network, an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded network of UK socio-behavioural researchers working to ensure that digital technologies work for people, societies and the planet.
• A senior Fellowship looking at AI for shared human-machine decision-making in healthcare imaging including studying ethics of the AI and trustworthiness.
• A joint Ada Lovelace Institute and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) programme.

Please note that this briefing was used to announce the UKRI funding of these projects – there is no new data/results yet.

Speakers included:

Prof Gopal Ramchurn, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Southampton

Prof Gina Neff, Executive Director, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, University of Cambridge

Fran Bennett, Interim Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute

Prof Alison Noble, Technikos Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford