Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the Alan Turing Institute's new cyber-defence programme does not impact funding of its non-defence AI research.

In July, the then DSIT Secretary of State wrote to the Chair of the Alan Turing Institute’s (ATI) Board of Trustees proposing a set of changes to the organisation that would shift its focus to national security, defence and sovereign capability. These reforms will build on the institute’s existing strengths and increase its capacity to deliver real value for the British public.

Under its Turing 2.0 strategy, ‘Defence and National Security’ is one of the institute’s three grand challenges, with the others being ‘Transformation of Health’ and ‘Environment and Sustainability’. The Turing’s recently announced Critical National Infrastructure mission has been launched within that framework.

Government welcomes the ATI Chair’s commitment to doubling down on defence, national security, and sovereign capability, and we will continue working closely with the institute moving forward.