Nvidia pledges $250 million to UK AI safety research

LONDON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - 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 centre for AI governance and security.

While Britain is not home to any major AI developers, it is seeking a leading role in evaluation and managing the risks posed by AI systems, partly through its AI Security Institute, one of the world's first state-backed bodies set up to assess the technology.

Nvidia's founder and CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday that the UK would receive accelerated computing resources worth $50 million annually. They would be dedicated to agentic safety testing and help British researchers strengthen safeguards for increasingly powerful AI.

"AI capability and safety must advance together," he said.

"This is how the UK turns research leadership into real-world solutions — and scientific progress into a future that benefits everyone."

Scrutiny of AI safety has intensified after developers including Anthropic and OpenAI disclosed instances of rogue or undesired behaviour by AI agents. Some industry figures have warned the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity.

British AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the donation from Nvidia would help ensure the AI of the future is "safe, secure and that serves people's best interests".

Nvidia's vote of confidence in Britain comes after Microsoft President Brad Smith said in an interview on Monday that the UK was well-placed to help lead work on AI safety guidelines.

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.

(Reporting by Sarah Young in London and Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Louise Heavens)