Nvidia, worth $5.5tn, donates $250m to UK for AI safety research
Pledge spanning five years from world’s most valuable firm comes as concerns about AI agents have risen
Dan Milmo Global technology editorWed 14 Oct 2026 11.10 BSTShare
The $5.5tn (£4.1tn) US chipmaker Nvidia is donating $250m worth of computing power to the UK to support AI safety research.
The donation from the world’s most valuable company comes as the UK government confirmed its AI Security Institute (AISI), which tests advance AI models, will be able to examine cutting-edge technology developed by companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google before they are released.
Nvidia said the donation, which spans five years, would “support agentic safety and security research across the UK”.
Safety concerns about AI agents – highly capable computer programs that are able to design and perform sequences of tasks autonomously – have risen since the summer, when OpenAI confirmed that a “swarm” of agents had attacked Hugging Face, a tech startup.
Nvidia did not reference AISI in its statement but said most of the money would “support the wider UK AI safety and security research community”, with a proportion of the cash going to the British Open-Ended Learning and Discovery Lab, the Science of Fundamental AI Research Lab – run by the Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and University College London universities – and Imperial College London.
The computing power will be delivered via UK-based datacentres using Nvidia chips.
“The UK brings world-class scientific rigour to this essential engineering challenge,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive. “With this $250m commitment, Nvidia will put accelerated computing in the hands of UK researchers to develop, test and strengthen safeguards for increasingly powerful AI.”
Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s AI minister, said the announcement was a “vote of confidence in our world-leading strength and expertise in AI research”.
On Monday Narayan confirmed that AISI was conducting tests on US-developed AI models before they are released, after reports that the White House had restricted access.
The AI minister also warned that the UK faces agentic attacks similar to the one carried out by OpenAI agents on Australia’s healthcare system this year.
“It seems likely, if not inevitable, that our own cyber defences will be breached,” said Narayan.
China-linked malicious actors called out by UK and international partners for targeting sensitive data globally
Joint advisory with international partners highlights exploitation and compromise of networks belonging to organisations across the globe.
China-linked company Integrity Technology Group has been exposed by the UK and international partners for enabling cyber actors to target organisations worldwide.
AI-enabled tools, large-scale botnets and hands-on exploitation techniques being used to compromise networks and steal sensitive data.
Organisations are being urged to strengthen their cyber resilience and defend against this evolving threat.
A range of malicious cyber activities enabled by a China-linked technology company and the wider ecosystem poses a significant threat as the UK and international partners urge organisations to improve their defences.
Alongside eight international partners from six countries, the National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – has issued a new advisory revealing how, Integrity Technology Group (Integrity Tech), a company based in China with links to the Chinese Government, has enabled malicious China-linked cyber actors to exploit and compromise networks belonging to organisations across the globe.
Malicious cyber actors, enabled by Integrity Tech, are uniquely using AI tools, such as automated scanning, alongside large-scale botnets and manual exploitation techniques to compromise and steal confidential data from companies around the world, including critical sectors.
Last year, the UK government sanctioned Integrity Tech, alongside another China-based information security company for their part in heedless malicious cyber activity against the UK and its allies.
The advisory also highlights that the company employs individuals who support a range of malicious cyber activities and contribute to the wider Chinese cyber ecosystem, including developing tools for use and sale, acquiring and hosting infrastructure and compromising networks across the globe.
The activity in the advisory is reported to be consistent with campaigns also publicly known as Flax Typhoon, Ethereal Panda and Red Juliett among others.
The extensive malicious cyber activities, and services by Integrity Tech, that have been exposed today should be extremely concerning for all network defenders.
The breadth of sectors that have been targeted across the globe demonstrate the extent of the threat and all organisations should take note of this warning and engage with NCSC advice and guidance.
We will continue to call out malicious actors and the malevolent ecosystem they operate in.
Paul Chichester, NCSC Director of Operations
Organisations are being urged to understand the threat and techniques used by these cyber actors and follow the mitigation advice to helpful defend against the activity highlighted in the advisory.
In September 2024, the NCSC alongside international partners, exposed Integrity Tech as the operator of a substantial botnet, where a network of internet-connected devices are infected with malware and controlled to carry out cyber attacks, and was utilised by advanced persistent threat group, Flax Typhoon.
Earlier this year, the NCSC alongside industry and 15 international partners from across nine countries issued an advisory and guidance highlighting how organisations can better defend against the cyber threat from covert networks.
The NCSC has co-sealed this new advisory alongside agencies from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the United States.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
