Southampton to lead £31 million ethical AI research project

The University of Southampton will lead a £31 million research project on making artificial intelligence more responsible as part of one of the biggest UK investments in the disruptive technology.

The Southampton-led consortium, Responsible AI UK, is part of more than £50 million in funding announced by UK Research and Innovation on 14 June.

Led by Gopal Ramchurn, the multidisciplinary project will seek to understand how AI can become more responsible and trustworthy, with researchers encouraged to work closely with policymakers to provide evidence for future policy and regulation, and guidance for businesses seeking to deploy AI solutions responsibly.

Some £13 million will also be used to fund 13 projects examining how AI can help the UK to meet its net-zero targets, with projects led by the universities of Aberystwyth, Edinburgh and Leicester among others.

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In addition, a further £8 million will fund two prestigious Turing AI World-leading Researcher Fellowships at the University of Oxford. These will go to Michael Bronstein to develop a novel mathematical framework for geometric and graph machine learning, which can potentially be applied to drug and food design, while Alison Noble’s research will work towards new AI for shared human-machine decision-making in healthcare imaging.

The funding follows a number of major new funding rounds focused on AI, including a £60 million call by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), launched in April, and a £117 million call for doctoral training centres to support around 1,000 PhD students over eight years, which closes next month.

It also comes after a call by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair and ex-Conservative leader Lord Hague of Richmond to increase AI research funding. They urged the creation of a new national laboratory for AI research to rival Google DeepMind, the UK’s pre-eminent research institution for AI.

Kedar Pandya, executive director for cross-council programmes at the EPSRC, which is funding the projects with Innovate UK, described the UK’s expertise in the field of AI as “a major asset to the country” that “will help develop the science and technology that will shape the fabric of many areas of our lives”.

“That is why UKRI is continuing to invest in the people and organisations that will have wide-ranging benefit,” said Dr Pandya.

Meanwhile, education secretary Gillian Keegan will use a speech at London Tech Week on 14 June to launch a call for evidence on the potential risks that AI poses to teachers and education workers, which will inform future work on detecting essay bots and cheating in exams. It will also seek views on how AI could be used to reduce workloads and improve educational outcomes.

The launch follows the publication of a statement in March 2023, which explained the government’s position on generative AI and sits alongside wider work on intellectual property, protecting the commercial value of data and understanding regulatory implications.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com