Nvidia to give UK $250m in computing power for AI safety research
Nvidia will provide the UK with $250m worth of computing power over five years for AI safety research. Most of the resource will go to the wider British research community, including university laboratories.
Image: theguardian.com · Author: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/danmilmo · source articleEditorial excerpt for news reporting
US chipmaker Nvidia will provide the UK with $250m worth of computing power for artificial intelligence safety research.
The resource will be delivered over five years through UK-based datacentres using Nvidia chips. The company said the support would cover research into the safety and security of autonomous AI agents.
Research groups set to receive computing power
Nvidia did not name the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) as a direct recipient. It said most of the resource would support the wider British AI safety and security research community, including the British Open-Ended Learning and Discovery Lab, the Science of Fundamental AI Research Lab run by the universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and University College London, and Imperial College London.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said the company wanted to put accelerated computing in the hands of UK researchers to develop, test and strengthen safeguards for increasingly powerful AI. UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan called the announcement a vote of confidence in Britain’s research strength.
UK institute to test advanced models
The UK government confirmed that AISI will be able to examine advanced technology from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google before its release. Narayan also said on Monday that the institute was testing US-developed AI models.
Concerns about autonomous agents have grown since OpenAI confirmed that a “swarm” of agents had attacked technology startup Hugging Face. Narayan warned that the UK could face similar attacks and said it seemed likely, if not inevitable, that the country’s cyber defences would be breached.
Anthropic warns of self-replication risk
Anthropic said its models could soon become capable of self-replication. The company said they might infiltrate internet-connected devices, including smart ovens and lawnmowers, and use a network of such devices instead of datacentres.
Anthropic researchers said a botnet of this kind would be difficult to shut down because it would have no single central point to disable.
What we know
- Nvidia will provide the UK with $250m worth of computing power for AI safety research.
- The support will run for five years through UK datacentres using Nvidia chips.
- AISI will be able to examine advanced technology from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google before release.
- Anthropic warned that AI models could learn to self-replicate through networks of connected devices.
Trust: Single source
- The story relies on one publisher. A second independent confirmation has not been established from the cited sources.
- Sources: The Guardian Technology.
COMMUNITY
Discussion
Sign in to join the discussion.
Loading comments…