A new £2 million academic-industry partnership led by the University of Edinburgh will look to develop new insurance models specifically for AI risks.
Working alongside insurance group AXA, as well as the Universities of Warwick and Oxford, Edinburgh Uni’s project aims to create novel methods to understand, measure, and ultimately insure against emerging risks associated with the commercial application of artificial intelligence.
It is hoped that by helping insurers to accurately price and underwrite AI-related risks in areas such as transport and healthcare, the project will play a role in laying the groundwork for future AI solutions, in everything from driverless cars to innovative medical devices.
New AI assurance and insurance frameworks could also lead to the wider and safer adoption of emerging tech across industry by transferring risk into the insurance market, and provide clear incentives for AI developers to create safer and more reliable products.
“As AI systems become more autonomous and embedded in high-stakes environments, traditional forms of insurance are no longer sufficient,” said lead academic Professor Lukasz Szpruch.
“AI insurance offers a new paradigm, one that explicitly covers risks like model failure, bias, or unintended behaviour that arise even when systems function within their design parameters.
“More than just risk transfer, it’s a mechanism to align incentives and reward those who build transparent, robust, and well-governed AI.”
Edinburgh University’s partnership is one of twenty-three new Prosperity Partnerships announced today (10th July) by UKRI, which aim to tackle industry challenges across pioneering areas from AI and cybersecurity to drug manufacturing.
Powered by £41 million in public investment, and matched by a further £56 million from businesses and academia, these partnerships will see some of the UK’s biggest household names, including Bupa, Rolls-Royce and GSK, working on projects that the UK Government hopes will improve lives and grow the economy.
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For example, University College London will partner with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to conduct AI-powered research for next-gen therapies targeting cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Building on previous work, another Prosperity Partnership led by the University of Edinburgh and Rolls-Royce will use supercomputing to model the use of environmentally friendly fuels such as hydrogen in future gas turbine engines for aviation.
“These partnerships show the range of real-world challenges the UK’s world-class research base is helping to tackle, from cutting carbon emissions in heavy transport, to improving access to life-saving medicines,” said the technology minister, Patrick Vallance.
“By backing scientists to work hand-in-hand with industry, we’re combining cutting-edge research with business expertise to turn science into practical solutions that can make a difference in people’s daily lives.”
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