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An Imperial robotics expert is among those leading a major new artificial intelligence lab set up with £30 million of government funding.

Researchers from Imperial’s Department of Computing led by will work through the new lab to create AI tools that go beyond Large Language Models (such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude) that many people are familiar with and will directly benefit our national progress developing robotics, new engineering techniques, healthcare and scientific discovery.

is part of a £60 million investment by to support two pioneering AI labs over the next six years. The lab will bring together researchers from Imperial, UCL and the University of Oxford, alongside industry and technology partners.Led by at the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, the BOLD lab will develop open, human-centred, resource-efficient AI systems that can operate safely and effectively in the real world. Ultimately, they hope to create tools people can use in their workplaces, infrastructure and public services – helping to boost the UK’s economy.

At Imperial, we see this as central to our Science for Humanity mission: developing AI that pushes the boundaries of research while helping people tackle real-world challenges in robotics, engineering, healthcare, and scientific discovery, for the benefit of society." Professor Antoine Cully Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

Crucially, the lab will move beyond the standard recipe that has driven recent progress in AI: training ever-larger neural networks on increasingly vast datasets. Instead, BOLD aims to develop new, scalable AI technologies that will unlock socially vital applications, from education and transport to healthcare and scientific discovery.

The research programme is built around three pillars:

• Beyond backpropagation will explore new ways to train AI that could require less computing power, memory and energy, while making systems more stable and adaptable.
• Human-centric learning and discovery will train AI systems to work with people, including as ‘co-scientists’ that can help research teams generate ideas, test hypotheses and accelerate discovery.
• Embodied learning will enable robots and other physical systems to learn and adapt under real-world constraints, with limited data and onboard computing power.

Commenting on the new lab, Professor Cully, said: "BOLD is an extraordinary opportunity to bring together the best research talent across the UK, deliver impact at real scale, and strengthen the UK's position at the forefront of global AI research. At Imperial, we see this as central to our Science for Humanity mission: developing AI that pushes the boundaries of research while helping people tackle real-world challenges in robotics, engineering, healthcare, and scientific discovery, for the benefit of society. I'm proud that Imperial is part of that journey." 

Transparency will be central to the lab’s approach, with BOLD releasing  open-source model training software, model weights, benchmarks, evaluation data and software, helping widen access to frontier AI research and accelerate progress across the wider community. Its researchers will also explore more decentralised approaches to AI development, so that individuals, universities and organisations can contribute to and shape AI systems that reflect their own needs, rather than relying only on models trained behind closed doors.

The project will also fund a major training environment for the UK’s next generation of AI researchers, with £2 million dedicated for hiring doctoral ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. In its first phase, BOLD plans to recruit an initial cohort of 12 BOLD fellows and 18 PhD ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, while building a collaborative environment for doctoral ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, interns and fellows across Oxford, UCL and Imperial.

, Head of Imperial's Department of Computing, said: "I am absolutely thrilled for Antoine. His selection for this monumental AI initiative reflects the profound impact of his research in robotics and machine learning. Antoine doesn't just follow AI trends; he builds fundamentally new ways for systems to learn and adapt. This is a well-deserved recognition of his scientific leadership, and I greatly look forward to seeing the new AI directions that will emerge from his group."

Further information on the new AI labs can be found .