The UK government has announced £82.6 million of flexible funding will be made available to UK researchers using AI to develop treatments for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.

£37.9 million will be put towards backing three innovative British research projects which form the Research Ventures Catalyst (RVC) programme.

The RVC programme will support pioneering work training AI on the NHS’s vast pool of cancer data, drug discovery research, and more.

A further £44.7 million in co-investment across the three projects will come from other sources including private investment.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the RVC programme is delivering novel ways of funding groundbreaking research, such as endowments, which are flexible and reflect the real needs of cutting-edge innovators.

Inflexible funding has been a barrier to some of the most innovative and creative research or has been an obstacle to new innovative businesses looking to scale-up, the government says.

Additionally, the science department announced that it has expanded UK involvement in the European High-Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Joint Undertaking by committing £7.8 million to fund UK researchers and businesses’ participation in EuroHPC research.

The move will allow British AI and high-performance computing researchers to work unobstructed with their peers across Europe, it said.

“We’ve already set out a bold new blueprint for AI which will help to spark a decade of national renewal, and key to that plan is supporting our expert researchers and businesses with the support they need to drive forward their game-changing innovations,” said science and technology secretary Peter Kyle. “Today, we open new avenues for them to do exactly that - building bridges with our international partners so the entire global community can share in the boundless opportunities of AI-powered progress and backing new innovative companies applying AI to tackle real-world challenges.”

---