Britain’s flagship artificial intelligence agency will slash the number of projects it backs and prioritise work on defence, environment and health as it seeks to respond to technological advances and criticism of its record.
The Alan Turing Institute — named after the pioneering British computer scientist — will shut or offload almost a quarter of its 101 current initiatives and is considering job cuts as part of a change programme that led scores of staff to write a letter expressing their loss of confidence in the leadership in December.
Jean Innes, appointed chief executive in July 2023, argued that huge advances in AI meant the Turing needed to modernise after being founded as a national data science institute by David Cameron’s government a decade ago this month.