UK AI minister to urge stronger safety efforts as Britain prepares tougher cyber defences

Britain is preparing to strengthen its cyber defences, but the policy intervention is still ahead: AI minister Kanishka Narayan is expected to warn that technology companies cannot carry the responsibility alone. The Guardian reports that his forthcoming remarks will press developers of the most advanced AI systems to increase their safety efforts.

A government role beyond company safeguards

In a speech in west London, Narayan is expected to argue that Britain cannot rely entirely on technology companies to police their own models. His call targets frontier AI developers—the companies building the most advanced systems—rather than treating safety as a responsibility those companies can discharge on their own.

He will also make the case for building more of the UK’s own AI infrastructure. That places domestic capacity alongside stronger cyber defences and greater safety efforts by developers in the same expected policy intervention.

The speech will be Narayan’s first since Andy Burnham made AI a cabinet-level brief. The advance remarks describe what the minister intends to say; they should not be read as confirmation that the proposed strengthening of cyber defences has already taken effect.

The AI companies do not have security that would prevent an adversarial country from stealing the models.

Geoffrey Irving, speaking to The Guardian

Model theft is the concrete security concern

Geoffrey Irving, a former chief scientist at the UK’s AI Security Institute, has raised concerns that hostile states could steal unreleased, cutting-edge models. The institute tests the most powerful AI models, giving his warning a specific focus: the security of the systems themselves, not simply how people might use them.

Irving cited an incident in which cybersecurity researchers hacked OpenAI under a company programme that rewards ethical hackers for testing its systems. The researchers said “the scope of what we could theoretically access was huge”. This was authorised security testing, not a reported theft by an enemy state.

OpenAI says it has multiple protections against model theft, including encryption and continuous monitoring. Its response describes safeguards already in place, while Irving’s warning challenges whether company security can prevent theft by a hostile country. The existence of those protections and their effectiveness against that threat are distinct questions.