The AI Security Institute (AISI) is a research organisation within the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). Its mission is to equip governments with an empirical understanding of the safety of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

AISI’s Alignment Project wishes to fund innovative artificial intelligence (AI) alignment research to keep advanced AI systems safe, secure and beneficial to society. It is supported by an international coalition of government, industry and philanthropic funders, including AISI, the Canadian AI Safety Institute, Schmidt Sciences, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Halcyon Futures, SafeAI and the UK Advanced Research and Innovation Agency.

The main aim is to fund projects to develop mitigations to safety and security risks from misaligned AI systems. Without advances in alignment research, future systems risk operating in ways that cannot be fully understood or controlled, with profound implications for global safety and security. In-scope projects will aim to address either of the following challenges:

• How can AI systems be prevented from carrying out actions that pose risks to collective security, even when they may attempt to carry out such actions?
• How can AI systems be designed that do not attempt to carry out such actions in the first place?

Making substantial breakthroughs in these areas is an interdisciplinary effort, requiring a diversity of tools and perspectives. Outstanding researchers are required across disciplines to contribute to alignment research. Research priorities include information theory and cryptography, computational complexity theory, cognitive science, and benchmark design and evaluation.

Proposals are invited from researchers based at universities, start-ups, non-profit organisations and independent teams worldwide, subject to due diligence requirements.

There is an overall budget of over £15 million. Funding of between £50,000 and £1 million is available. The coalition of funders may consider higher value projects in certain circumstances. In addition, funding recipients have access to cloud computing credits, venture capital investment and support from AISI’s Alignment and Control teams.

An informational webinar will take place on 11 August 2025 (16:00 to 17:00 BST), where applicants can learn more about the scheme and ask questions. Advance registration is required to attend.