--- title: UK puts £130m into AI cyber defence in a £600m+ AI package description: The UK government is putting £130m toward AI cyber defence as part of a wider £600m+ AI package announced ahead of this week's Budget. A National Cyber Shield... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/uk-puts-130m-into-ai-cyber-defence-in-a-600m-ai-package-agncnr8ga twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: UK puts £130m into AI cyber defence in a £600m+ AI package | daily.dev og:description: The UK government is putting £130m toward AI cyber defence as part of a wider £600m+ AI package announced ahead of this week's Budget. A National Cyber Shield... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/uk-puts-130m-into-ai-cyber-defence-in-a-600m-ai-package-agncnr8ga og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/AgNcNR8Ga.png og:image:alt: UK puts £130m into AI cyber defence in a £600m+ AI package og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # UK puts £130m into AI cyber defence in a £600m+ AI package **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The UK government is putting £130m toward AI cyber defence as part of a wider £600m+ AI package announced ahead of this week's Budget. A National Cyber Shield gets £60m, including a £25m challenge fund for UK AI and cybersecurity companies and a planned regulatory sandbox for agentic security tools. A separate £70m funds a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre to find flaws across critical infrastructure and the wider economy. The AI Security Institute gets £120m more, and a new NCSC AI Cyber Security Centre of Excellence will be set up in Manchester to train government cyber and AI specialists. AI minister Kanishka Narayan said AI tools had found 500 previously unknown flaws in parts of the public sector. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much is the UK government spending on AI cyber defence The UK government is spending £130m on AI cyber defence as part of a broader £600m+ AI package set for the Budget. This includes £60m for a National Cyber Shield using agentic AI, with a £25m challenge fund for AI and cybersecurity companies, plus £70m for a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre. _Security teams weighing government AI tooling investment can follow funding shifts like this on daily.dev._ ### What is the UK's National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre The National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability (NERV) Centre is a UK government initiative funded with £70m that will use AI tools to find cyber vulnerabilities across critical infrastructure and the wider economy. It is part of a larger AI cyber defence package that also includes a £60m National Cyber Shield using agentic AI. _Developers tracking AI-driven vulnerability scanning initiatives can follow updates like this on daily.dev._ ### How many security flaws has AI found in the UK public sector AI tools found 500 previously unknown flaws in parts of the UK public sector, according to AI minister Kanishka Narayan. This was cited alongside announcements of £130m in new AI cyber defence funding, including a National Cyber Shield and a vulnerability detection centre. _Anyone evaluating AI-assisted vulnerability scanning can keep tabs on results like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Britain bets big on AI to defend against the threats AI is helping create](https://daily.dev/posts/britain-bets-big-on-ai-to-defend-against-the-threats-ai-is-helping-create-r41xxtghj) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [UK commits £1.3bn to AI hardware, skills, and justice reform](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-commits-1-3bn-to-ai-hardware-skills-and-justice-reform-qr2znn6l8) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [UK government will buy tech to boost AI sector in $130M growth push](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-government-will-buy-tech-to-boost-ai-sector-in-130m-growth-push-4fzus5e59) · Ars Technica · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [UK Government Sound Alarm Over AI Security Risk](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-government-sound-alarm-over-ai-security-risk-ligwbbmck) · IT Security Guru · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [UK cyber agency unveils AI-powered Cyber Shield to counter attacks at machine speed](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-cyber-agency-unveils-ai-powered-cyber-shield-to-counter-attacks-at-machine-speed-v3txah6rz) · CSO Online · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cyber](https://daily.dev/tags/cyber), [#ai-safety](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-safety), [#agentic-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/agentic-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/uk-puts-130m-into-ai-cyber-defence-in-a-600m-ai-package-agncnr8ga) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"UK puts £130m into AI cyber defence in a £600m+ AI package","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/uk-puts-130m-into-ai-cyber-defence-in-a-600m-ai-package-agncnr8ga","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/uk-puts-130m-into-ai-cyber-defence-in-a-600m-ai-package-agncnr8ga"},"datePublished":"2026-10-26T19:08:12.875Z","dateModified":"2026-10-26T19:12:42.394Z","description":"The UK government is putting £130m toward AI cyber defence as part of a wider £600m+ AI package announced ahead of this week's Budget. 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