UK academic consortium BOLD launches with £30 million to research alternatives to backpropagation and commercial AI paradigms

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akbir.@akbirkhan

this is both - a huge academic grant (5x a single year ESPRC grant)

- a tiny grant for an ML bet (recursion is 50x this, same headcount)

British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab@bold_lab_ai

Hello world :) We are BOLD — the British Open-ended Learning and Discovery Lab!

BOLD is a new academic research lab fully focussed on paradigm breaking discoveries in fundamental AI. We work towards more efficient & open AI that is built around human needs and capabilities.

To pursue these breakthroughs, we pioneer new modes of collaboration in academia that are more focussed, resourced, agile, and collaborative. Rather than fragmenting resources, today we are sunsetting 5 of the UKs leading AI labs to join forces under our joined scientific vision.

Our vision is centered around three pillars: ⚡ Beyond backpropagation – questioning the foundations of the field. 🤝 Human-centric learning & discovery – treating humans as core to our algorithms 🤖 Embodied learning – fast learning and adapting methods that deal with the messy real world

BOLD is backed by @UKRI_News and @EPSRC with £30M – and this is just the beginning. We are urgently looking for partners and sponsors to 10x this.

👉 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-06-22-oxford-to-host-new-uk-ai-research-lab

👉 http://bold-lab.ai

@j_foerst, @CULLYAntoine, @tonizza82, @shimon8282, @tonizza82, Ani Calinescu & @_rockt

12h2.2K131

Max Nadeau@MaxNadeau_

@akbirkhan 12x no?

5h66

Tim Rocktäschel@_rockt

@LauraRuis @akbirkhan Point of @bold_lab_ai is to specifically focus on research outside the beaten path. We have more news on the compute soon, but I think it will only be enough to show strong signs of life. If students want take it further, they will likely have to spin out.

Laura Ruis@LauraRuis

@akbirkhan GPT-1 was expensive but still academically reachable for well-funded labs back in 2018

1h3820

Laura Ruis@LauraRuis

@akbirkhan thats likely why its focus is paradigm breaking discoveries, not just doing what industry labs do

akbir.@akbirkhan

this is both - a huge academic grant (5x a single year ESPRC grant)

- a tiny grant for an ML bet (recursion is 50x this, same headcount)

2h10010

akbir.@akbirkhan

@LauraRuis i think most new paradigms are discovered in the higher regimes of compute!

You can see imagenet/ transformers / gpts as a function of researchers getting more flops to play with!

2h44

akbir.@akbirkhan

@MaxNadeau_ i think recursion raises a series A in two years whilst BOLD is fixed for six years

4h36

Laura Ruis@LauraRuis

@akbirkhan GPT-1 was expensive but still academically reachable for well-funded labs back in 2018

1h18

Max Nadeau@MaxNadeau_

@akbirkhan 500m/40m

5h30

Max Nadeau@MaxNadeau_

@akbirkhan fair

2h13